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r  LIBRARY     >| 

UNIVERSITY  OF 

CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 


VOLUME   III 

FIGHTING   FRANCE 


A  French  palisade. 


THE  WAR  ON  ALL  FRONTS 


FIGHTING  FRANCE 

FROM    DUNKERQUE    TO    BELPOHT 


BY 
EDITH   WHARTON 

CHEVALIER  OF  THE  LEGION  OP  HONOR 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,  1915.  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS 1 

IN  ARGONNE 43 

IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES      ........     91 

IN  THE  NORTH 137 

IN  ALSACE ..181 

THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE   .......  .    .  217 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


A  French  palisade Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


Sketch  map  of  region  around  the  Forest  of  Argonne     .  54 

Ruins  of  General  Lyautey's  house  in  Crevic       .     .     .  116 

A  war  grave 117 

A  typical  trench  in  the  dunes 166 

The  colony  of  saints  on  a  soldier's  grave  at  Nieuport  167 

The  Cloth  Market  at  Nieuport 172 

A  street  at  Nieuport 173 

A  sand-bag  trench  in  the  north 178 


THE   LOOK   OF   PARIS 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS 

(AUGUST,  1914  —  FEBRUARY,  1915) 


AUGUST 

N  the  30th  of  July,  1914,  motoring  north 
from  Poitiers,  we  had  lunched  some 
where  by  the  roadside  under  apple-trees  on 
the  edge  of  a  field.  Other  fields  stretched 
away  on  our  right  and  left  to  a  border  of 
woodland  and  a  village  steeple.  All  around 
was  noonday  quiet,  and  the  sober  disci 
plined  landscape  which  the  traveller's  mem 
ory  is  apt  to  evoke  as  distinctively  French. 
Sometimes,  even  to  accustomed  eyes,  these 
ruled-off  fields  and  compact  grey  villages 
seem  merely  flat  and  tame;  at  other  mo 
ments  the  sensitive  imagination  sees  in 
every  thrifty  sod  and  even  furrow  the 
ceaseless  vigilant  attachment  of  genera 
tions  faithful  to  the  soil.  The  particular  bit 


4  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

of  landscape  before  us  spoke  in  all  its  lines 
of  that  attachment.  The  air  seemed  full 
of  the  long  murmur  of  human  effort,  the 
rhythm  of  oft-repeated  tasks;  the  serenity 
of  the  scene  smiled  away  the  war  rumours 
which  had  hung  on  us  since  morning. 

All  day  the  sky  had  been  banked  with 
thunder-clouds,  but  by  the  time  we  reached 
Chartres,  toward  four  o'clock,  they  had 
rolled  away  under  the  horizon,  and  the 
town  was  so  saturated  with  sunlight  that 
to  pass  into  the  cathedral  was  like  entering 
the  dense  obscurity  of  a  church  in  Spain. 
At  first  all  detail  was  imperceptible:  we 
were  in  a  hollow  night.  Then,  as  the  shad 
ows  gradually  thinned  and  gathered  them 
selves  up  into  pier  and  vault  and  ribbing, 
there  burst  out  of  them  great  sheets  and 
showers  of  colour.  Framed  by  such  depths 
of  darkness,  and  steeped  in  a  blaze  of  mid 
summer  sun,  the  familiar  windows  seemed 
singularly  remote  and  yet  overpoweringly 
vivid.  Now  they  widened  into  dark-shored 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  5 

pools  splashed  with  sunset,  now  glittered 
and  menaced  like  the  shields  of  fighting 
angels.  Some  were  cataracts  of  sapphires, 
others  roses  dropped  from  a  saint's  tunic, 
others  great  carven  platters  strewn  with 
heavenly  regalia,  others  the  sails  of  galleons 
bound  for  the  Purple  Islands;  and  in  the 
western  wall  the  scattered  fires  of  the  rose- 
window  hung  like  a  constellation  in  an 
African  night.  When  one  dropped  one's 
eyes  from  these  ethereal  harmonies,  the 
dark  masses  of  masonry  below  them,  all 
veiled  and  muffled  in  a  mist  pricked  by  a 
few  altar  lights,  seemed  to  symbolize  the 
life  on  earth,  with  its  shadows,  its  heavy 
distances  and  its  little  islands  of  illusion. 
All  that  a  great  cathedral  can  be,  all  the 
meanings  it  can  express,  all  the  tranquilliz 
ing  power  it  can  breathe  upon  the  soul,  all 
the  richness  of  detail  it  can  fuse  into  a  large 
utterance  of  strength  and  beauty,  the  ca 
thedral  of  Chartres  gave  us  in  that  per 
fect  hour. 


6  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

It  was  sunset  when  we  reached  the  gates 
of  Paris.  Under  the  heights  of  St.  Cloud 
and  Suresnes  the  reaches  of  the  Seine 
trembled  with  the  blue-pink  lustre  of  an 
early  Monet.  The  Bois  lay  about  us  in  the 
stillness  of  a  holiday  evening,  and  the  lawns 
of  Bagatelle  were  as  fresh  as  June.  Below 
the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  the  Champs  Elysees 
sloped  downward  in  a  sun-powdered  haze 
to  the  mist  of  fountains  and  the  ethereal 
obelisk;  and  the  currents  of  summer  life 
ebbed  and  flowed  with  a  normal  beat  under 
the  trees  of  the  radiating  avenues.  The 
great  city,  so  made  for  peace  and  art  and 
all  humanest  graces,  seemed  to  lie  by  her 
river-side  like  a  princess  guarded  by  the 
watchful  giant  of  the  Eiffel  Tower. 

The  next  day  the  air  was  thundery  with 
rumours.  Nobody  believed  them,  every 
body  repeated  them.  War  ?  Of  course  there 
couldn't  be  war !  The  Cabinets,  like  naugh 
ty  children,  were  again  dangling  their  feet 
over  the  edge;  but  the  whole  incalcula- 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  7 

ble  weight  of  things-as-they-were,  of  the 
daily  necessary  business  of  living,  contin 
ued  calmly  and  convincingly  to  assert  itself 
against  the  bandying  of  diplomatic  words. 
Paris  went  on  steadily  about  her  mid 
summer  business  of  feeding,  dressing,  and 
amusing  the  great  army  of  tourists  who 
were  the  only  invaders  she  had  seen  for 
nearly  half  a  century. 

All  the  while,  every  one  knew  that  other 
work  was  going  on  also.  The  whole  fabric 
of  the  country's  seemingly  undisturbed 
routine  was  threaded  with  noiseless  invis 
ible  currents  of  preparation,  the  sense  of 
them  was  in  the  calm  air  as  the  sense  of 
changing  weather  is  in  the  balminess  of  a 
perfect  afternoon.  Paris  counted  the  min 
utes  till  the  evening  papers  came. 

They  said  little  or  nothing  except  what 
every  one  was  already  declaring  all  over 
the  country.  "We  don't  want  war  —  mais 
ilfaut  que  celafinisse!"  "This  kind  of  thing 
has  got  to  stop":  that  was  the  only  phrase 


8  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

one  heard.  If  diplomacy  could  still  arrest 
the  war,  so  much  the  better:  no  one  in 
France  wanted  it.  All  who  spent  the  first 
days  of  August  in  Paris  will  testify  to  the 
agreement  of  feeling  on  that  point.  But 
if  war  had  to  come,  then  the  country,  and 
every  heart  in  it,  was  ready. 

At  the  dressmaker's,,  the  next  morning, 
the  tired  fitters  were  preparing  to  leave 
for  their  usual  holiday.  They  looked  pale 
and  anxious  —  decidedly,  there  was  a  new 
weight  of  apprehension  in  the  air.  And  in 
the  rue  Royale,  at  the  corner  of  the  Place 
de  la  Concorde,  a  few  people  had  stopped 
to  look  at  a  little  strip  of  white  paper  against 
the  wall  of  the  Minis tere  de  la  Marine. 
"General  mobilization"  they  read  —  and 
an  armed  nation  knows  what  that  means. 
But  the  group  about  the  paper  was  small 
and  quiet.  Passers  by  read  the  notice  and 
went  on.  There  were  no  cheers,  no  gesticula 
tions:  the  dramatic  sense  of  the  race  had 
already  told  them  that  the  event  was  too 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  9 

great  to  be  dramatized.  Like  a  monstrous 
landslide  it  had  fallen  across  the  path  of 
an  orderly  laborious  nation,  disrupting  its 
routine,  annihilating  its  industries,  rending 
families  apart,  and  burying  under  a  heap 
of  senseless  ruin  the  patiently  and  painfully 
wrought  machinery  of  civilization.  .  . 

That  evening,  in  a  restaurant  of  the  rue 
Royale,  we  sat  at  a  table  in  one  of  the 
open  windows,  abreast  with  the  street,  and 
saw  the  strange  new  crowds  stream  by.  In 
an  instant  we  were  being  shown  what  mo 
bilization  was  —  a  huge  break  in  the  normal 
flow  of  traffic,  like  the  sudden  rupture  of  a 
dyke.  The  street  was  flooded  by  the  tor 
rent  of  people  sweeping  past  us  to  the  vari 
ous  railway  stations.  All  were  on  foot,  and 
carrying  their  luggage;  for  since  dawn 
every  cab  and  taxi  and  motor-omnibus 
had  disappeared.  The  War  Office  had 
thrown  out  its  drag-net  and  caught  them 
all  in.  The  crowd  that  passed  our  window 
was  chiefly  composed  of  conscripts,  the 


10  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

mobilisables  of  the  first  day,  who  were  on 
the  way  to  the  station  accompanied  by 
their  families  and  friends;  but  among  them 
Were  little  clusters  of  bewildered  tourists, 
labouring  along  with  bags  and  bundles,  and 
watching  their  luggage  pushed  before  them 
on  hand-carts  —  puzzled  inarticulate  waifs 
caught  in  the  cross-tides  racing  to  a  mael 
strom. 

In  the  restaurant,  the  befrogged  and  red- 
coated  band  poured  out  patriotic  music, 
and  the  intervals  between  the  courses  that 
so  few  waiters  were  left  to  serve  were 
broken  by  the  ever-recurring  obligation  to 
stand  up  for  the  Marseillaise,  to  stand  up 
for  God  Save  the  King,  to  stand  up  for  the 
Russian  National  Anthem,  to  stand  up 
again  for  the  Marseillaise.  "Et  dire  que  ce 
sont  des  Hongrois  qui  jouent  tout  cela  /"  a 
humourist  remarked  from  the  pavement. 

As  the  evening  wore  on  and  the  crowd 
about  our  window  thickened,  the  loiterers 
outside  began  to  join  in  the  war-songs. 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  11 

"  Allans ,  debout  /"  —  and  the  loyal  round 
begins  again.  "La  chanson  du  depart!"  is 
a  frequent  demand;  and  the  chorus  of 
spectators  chimes  in  roundly.  A  sort  of 
quiet  humour  was  the  note  of  the  street. 
Down  the  rue  Royale,  toward  the  Made 
leine,  the  bands  of  other  restaurants  were 
attracting  other  throngs,  and  martial  re 
frains  were  strung  along  the  Boulevard  like 
its  garlands  of  arc-lights.  It  was  a  night  of 
singing  and  acclamations,  not  boisterous, 
but  gallant  and  determined.  It  was  Paris 
badauderie  at  its  best. 

Meanwhile,  beyond  the  fringe  of  idlers 
the  steady  stream  of  conscripts  still  poured 
along.  Wives  and  families  trudged  beside 
them,  carrying  all  kinds  of  odd  improvised 
bags  and  bundles.  The  impression  disen 
gaging  itself  from  all  this  superficial  con 
fusion  was  that  of  a  cheerful  steadiness  of 
spirit.  The  faces  ceaselessly  streaming  by 
were  serious  but  not  sad;  nor  was  there 
any  air  of  bewilderment  —  the  stare  of 


12  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

driven  cattle.  All  these  lads  and  young 
men  seemed  to  know  what  they  were  about 
and  why  they  were  about  it.  The  youngest 
of  them  looked  suddenly  grown  up  and 
responsible:  they  understood  their  stake  in 
the  job,  and  accepted  it. 

The  next  day  the  army  of  midsummer 
travel  was  immobilized  to  let  the  other 
army  move.  No  more  wild  rushes  to  the 
station,  no  more  bribing  of  concierges,  vain 
quests  for  invisible  cabs,  haggard  hours  of 
waiting  in  the  queue  at  Cook's.  No  train 
stirred  except  to  carry  soldiers,  and  the 
civilians  who  had  not  bribed  and  jammed 
their  way  into  a  cranny  of  the  thronged 
carriages  leaving  the  first  night  could  only 
creep  back  through  the  hot  streets  to  their 
hotels  and  wait.  Back  they  went,  disap 
pointed  yet  half-relieved,  to  the  resound 
ing  emptiness  of  porterless  halls,  waiterless 
restaurants,  motionless  lifts:  to  the  queer 
disjointed  life  of  fashionable  hotels  sud 
denly  reduced  to  the  intimacies  and  make- 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  13 

shift  of  a  Latin  Quarter  pension.  Mean 
while  it  was  strange  to  watch  the  gradual 
paralysis  of  the  city.  As  the  motors,  taxis, 
cabs  and  vans  had  vanished  from  the 
streets,  so  the  lively  little  steamers  had  left 
the  Seine.  The  canal-boats  too  were  gone, 
or  lay  motionless:  loading  and  unloading 
had  ceased.  Every  great  architectural  open 
ing  framed  an  emptiness;  all  the  endless 
avenues  stretched  away  to  desert  distances. 
In  the  parks  and  gardens  no  one  raked  the 
paths  or  trimmed  the  borders.  The  foun 
tains  slept  in  their  basins,  the  worried 
sparrows  fluttered  unfed,  and  vague  dogs, 
shaken  out  of  their  daily  habits,  roamed 
unquietly,  looking  for  familiar  eyes.  Paris, 
so  intensely  conscious  yet  so  strangely  en 
tranced,  seemed  to  have  had  curare  in 
jected  into  all  her  veins. 

The  next  day  —  the  2nd  of  August  — 
from  the  terrace  of  the  Hotel  de  Crillon 
one  looked  down  on  a  first  faint  stir  of  re 
turning  life.  Now  and  then  a  taxi-cab  or 


14  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

a  private  motor  crossed  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  carrying  soldiers  to  the  stations. 
Other  conscripts,  in  detachments,  tramped 
by  on  foot  with  bags  and  banners.  One  de 
tachment  stopped  before  the  black-veiled 
statue  of  Strasbourg  and  laid  a  garland  at 
her  feet.  In  ordinary  times  this  demon 
stration  would  at  once  have  attracted  a 
crowd;  but  at  the  very  moment  when  it 
might  have  been  expected  to  provoke  a 
patriotic  outburst  it  excited  no  more  at 
tention  than  if  one  of  the  soldiers  had 
turned  aside  to  give  a  penny  to  a  beggar. 
The  people  crossing  the  square  did  not 
even  stop  to  look.  The  meaning  of  this  ap 
parent  indifference  was  obvious.  When  an 
armed  nation  mobilizes,  everybody  is  busy, 
and  busy  in  a  definite  and  pressing  way. 
It  is  not  only  the  fighters  that  mobilize: 
those  who  stay  behind  must  do  the  same. 
For  each  French  household,  for  each  in 
dividual  man  or  woman  in  France,  war 
means  a  complete  reorganization  of  life. 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  15 

The  detachment  of  conscripts,  unnoticed, 
paid  their  tribute  to  the  Cause  and  passed 
on.  .  . 

Looked  back  on  from  these  sterner 
months  those  early  days  in  Paris,  in  their 
setting  of  grave  architecture  and  summer 
skies,  wear  the  light  of  the  ideal  and  the 
abstract.  The  sudden  flaming  up  of  na 
tional  life,  the  abeyance  of  every  small 
and  mean  preoccupation,  cleared  the  moral 
air  as  the  streets  had  been  cleared,  and 
made  the  spectator  feel  as  though  he  were 
reading  a  great  poem  on  War  rather  than 
facing  its  realities. 

Something  of  this  sense  of  exaltation 
seemed  to  penetrate  the  throngs  who 
streamed  up  and  down  the  Boulevards  till 
late  into  the  night.  All  wheeled  traffic  had 
ceased,  except  that  of  the  rare  taxi-cabs 
impressed  to  carry  conscripts  to  the  sta 
tions;  and  the  middle  of  the  Boulevards 
was  as  thronged  with  foot-passengers  as  an 


16  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

Italian  market-place  on  a  Sunday  morn 
ing.  The  vast  tide  swayed  up  and  down 
at  a  slow  pace,  breaking  now  and  then 
to  make  room  for  one  of  the  volunteer 
"legions"  which  were  forming  at  every  cor 
ner:  Italian,  Roumanian,  South  Ameri 
can,  North  American,  each  headed  by  its 
national  flag  and  hailed  with  cheering  as 
it  passed.  But  even  the  cheers  were  sober: 
Paris  was  not  to  be  shaken  out  of  her  self- 
imposed  serenity.  One  felt  something  no 
bly  conscious  and  voluntary  in  the  mood 
of  this  quiet  multitude.  Yet  it  was  a 
mixed  throng,  made  up  of  every  class,  from 
the  scum  of  the  Exterior  Boulevards  to 
the  cream  of  the  fashionable  restaurants. 
These  people,  only  two  days  ago,  had  been 
leading  a  thousand  different  lives,  in  in 
difference  or  in  antagonism  to  each  other, 
as  alien  as  enemies  across  a  frontier:  now 
workers  and  idlers,  thieves,  beggars,  saints, 
poets,  drabs  and  sharpers,  genuine  people 
and  showy  shams,  were  all  bumping  up 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  17 

against  each  other  in  an  instinctive  com 
munity  of  emotion.  The  "people,"  luckily, 
predominated;  the  faces  of  workers  look 
best  in  such  a  crowd,  and  there  were  thou 
sands  of  them,  each  illuminated  and  singled 
out  by  its  magnesium-flash  of  passion. 

I  remember  especially  the  steady-browed 
faces  of  the  women;  and  also  the  small  but 
significant  fact  that  every  one  of  them  had 
remembered  to  bring  her  dog.  The  biggest 
of  these  amiable  companions  had  to  take 
their  chance  of  seeing  what  they  could 
through  the  forest  of  human  legs;  but 
every  one  that  was  portable  was  snugly 
lodged  in  the  bend  of  an  elbow,  and  from 
this  safe  perch  scores  and  scores  of  small 
serious  muzzles,  blunt  or  sharp,  smooth  or 
woolly,  brown  or  grey  or  white  or  black 
or  brindled,  looked  out  on  the  scene  with 
the  quiet  awareness  of  the  Paris  dog.  It 
was  certainly  a  good  sign  that  they  had  not 
been  forgotten  that  night. 


18  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

II 

WE  had  been  shown,  impressively,  what 
it  was  to  live  through  a  mobilization;  now 
we  were  to  learn  that  mobilization  is  only 
one  of  the  concomitants  of  martial  law, 
and  that  martial  law  is  not  comfortable  to 
live  under  —  at  least  till  one  gets  used 
to  it. 

At  first  its  main  purpose,  to  the  neutral 
civilian,  seemed  certainly  to  be  the  way 
ward  pleasure  of  complicating  his  life;  and 
in  that  line  it  excelled  in  the  last  refine 
ments  of  ingenuity.  Instructions  began  to 
shower  on  us  after  the  lull  of  the  first  days: 
instructions  as  to  what  to  do,  and  what 
not  to  do,  in  order  to  make  our  presence 
tolerable  and  our  persons  secure.  In  the 
first  place,  foreigners  could  not  remain  in 
France  without  satisfying  the  authorities 
as  to  their  nationality  and  antecedents; 
and  to  do  this  necessitated  repeated  inef 
fective  visits  to  chanceries,  consulates  and 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  19 

police  stations,  each  too  densely  thronged 
with  flustered  applicants  to  permit  the  en 
trance  of  one  more.  Between  these  vain  pil 
grimages,  the  traveller  impatient  to  leave 
had  to  toil  on  foot  to  distant  railway  sta 
tions,  from  which  he  returned  baffled  by 
vague  answers  and  disheartened  by  the 
declaration  that  tickets,  when  achievable, 
must  also  be  vises  by  the  police.  There  was 
a  moment  when  it  seemed  that  one's  inmost 
thoughts  had  to  have  that  unobtainable 
visa  —  to  obtain  which,  more  fruitless  hours 
must  be  lived  on  grimy  stairways  between 
perspiring  layers  of  fellow-aliens.  Mean 
while  one's  money  was  probably  running 
short,  and  one  must  cable  or  telegraph  for 
more.  Ah  —  but  cables  and  telegrams  must 
be  vises  too — and  even  when  they  were,  one 
got  no  guarantee  that  they  would  be  sent ! 
Then  one  could  not  use  code  addresses, 
and  the  ridiculous  number  of  words  con 
tained  in  a  New  York  address  seemed  to 
multiply  as  the  francs  in  one's  pock- 


20  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

ets  diminished.  And  when  the  cable  was 
finally  despatched  it  was  either  lost  on  the 
way,  or  reached  its  destination  only  to 
call  forth,  after  anxious  days,  the  disheart 
ening  response:  "Impossible  at  present. 
Making  every  effort."  It  is  fair  to  add 
that,  tedious  and  even  irritating  as  many 
of  these  transactions  were,  they  were 
greatly  eased  by  the  sudden  uniform  good 
nature  of  the  French  functionary,  who, 
for  the  first  time,  probably,  in  the  long 
tradition  of  his  line,  broke  through  its 
fundamental  rule  and  was  kind. 

Luckily,  too,  these  incessant  comings 
and  goings  involved  much  walking  of  the 
beautiful  idle  summer  streets,  which  grew 
idler  and  more  beautiful  each  day.  Never 
had  such  blue-grey  softness  of  afternoon 
brooded  over  Paris,  such  sunsets  turned 
the  heights  of  the  Trocadero  into  Dido's 
Carthage,  never,  above  all,  so  rich  a  moon 
ripened  through  such  perfect  evenings. 
The  Seine  itself  had  no  small  share  in  this 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  21 

mysterious  increase  of  the  city's  beauty. 
Released  from  all  traffic,  its  hurried  rip 
ples  smoothed  themselves  into  long  silken 
reaches  in  which  quays  and  monuments  at 
last  saw  their  unbroken  images.  At  night 
the  fire-fly  lights  of  the  boats  had  van 
ished,  and  the  reflections  of  the  street 
lamps  were  lengthened  into  streamers  of 
red  and  gold  and  purple  that  slept  on  the 
calm  current  like  fluted  water- weeds.  Then 
the  moon  rose  and  took  possession  of  the 
city,  purifying  it  of  all  accidents,  calming 
and  enlarging  it  and  giving  it  back  its 
ideal  lines  of  strength  and  repose.  There 
was  something  strangely  moving  in  this 
new  Paris  of  the  August  evenings,  so  ex 
posed  yet  so  serene,  as  though  her  very- 
beauty  shielded  her. 

So,  gradually,  we  fell  into  the  habit  of 
living  under  martial  law.  After  the  first 
days  of  flustered  adjustment  the  personal 
inconveniences  were  so  few  that  one  felt 


22  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

almost  ashamed  of  their  not  being  more, 
of  not  being  called  on  to  contribute  some 
greater  sacrifice  of  comfort  to  the  Cause. 
Within  the  first  week  over  two  thirds  of 
the  shops  had  closed  —  the  greater  num 
ber  bearing  on  their  shuttered  windows 
the  notice  "Pour  cause  de  mobilisation," 
which  showed  that  the  "patron"  and  staff 
were  at  the  front.  But  enough  remained 
open  to  satisfy  every  ordinary  want,  and 
the  closing  of  the  others  served  to  prove 
how  much  one  could  do  without.  Provi 
sions  were  as  cheap  and  plentiful  as  ever, 
though  for  a  while  it  was  easier  to  buy 
food  than  to  have  it  cooked.  The  restau 
rants  were  closing  rapidly,  and  one  often 
had  to  wander  a  long  way  for  a  meal,  and 
wait  a  longer  time  to  get  it.  A  few  hotels 
still  carried  on  a  halting  life,  galvanized 
by  an  occasional  inrush  of  travel  from 
Belgium  and  Germany;  but  most  of  them 
had  closed  or  were  being  hastily  trans 
formed  into  hospitals. 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  23 

The  signs  over  these  hotel  doors  first 
disturbed  the  dreaming  harmony  of  Paris. 
In  a  night,  as  it  seemed,  the  whole  city 
was  hung  with  Red  Crosses.  Every  other 
building  showed  the  red  and  white  band 
across  its  front,  with  "Ouvroir"  or  "H6- 
pital"  beneath;  there  was  something  sin 
ister  in  these  preparations  for  horrors  in 
which  one  could  not  yet  believe,  in  the 
making  of  bandages  for  limbs  yet  sound 
and  whole,  the  spreading  of  pillows  for 
heads  yet  carried  high.  But  insist  as  they 
would  on  the  woe  to  come,  these  warning 
signs  did  not  deeply  stir  the  trance  of 
Paris.  The  first  days  of  the  war  were  full 
of  a  kind  of  unrealizing  confidence,  not 
boastful  or  fatuous,  yet  as  different  as 
possible  from  the  clear-headed  tenacity  of 
purpose  that  the  experience  of  the  next 
few  months  was  to  develop.  It  is  hard  to 
evoke,  without  seeming  to  exaggerate  it, 
that  mood  of  early  August:  the  assurance, 
the  balance,  the  kind  of  smiling  fatalism 


24  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

with  which  Paris  moved  to  her  task.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  the  beauty  of  the  sea 
son  and  the  silence  of  the  city  may  have 
helped  to  produce  this  mood.  War,  the 
shrieking  fury,  had  announced  herself  by 
a  great  wave  of  stillness.  Never  was  desert 
hush  more  complete:  the  silence  of  a  street 
is  always  so  much  deeper  than  the  silence 
of  wood  or  field. 

The  heaviness  of  the  August  air  intensi 
fied  this  impression  of  suspended  life.  The 
days  were  dumb  enough;  but  at  night 
the  hush  became  acute.  In  the  quarter  I 
inhabit,  always  deserted  in  summer,  the 
shuttered  streets  were  mute  as  catacombs, 
and  the  faintest  pin-prick  of  noise  seemed 
to  tear  a  rent  in  a  black  pall  of  silence.  I 
could  hear  the  tired  tap  of  a  lame  hoof 
half  a  mile  away,  and  the  tread  of  the 
policeman  guarding  the  Embassy  across 
the  street  beat  against  the  pavement  like 
a  series  of  detonations.  Even  the  varie 
gated  noises  of  the  city's  waking-up  had 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  25 

ceased.  If  any  sweepers,  scavengers  or 
rag-pickers  still  plied  their  trades  they  did 
it  as  secretly  as  ghosts.  I  remember  one 
morning  being  roused  out  of  a  deep  sleep 
by  a  sudden  explosion  of  noise  in  my 
room.  I  sat  up  with  a  start,  and  found  I 
had  been  waked  by  a  low-voiced  exchange 
of  "Bonjours"  in  the  street.  .  . 

Another  fact  that  kept  the  reality  of 
war  from  Paris  was  the  curious  absence  of 
troops  in  the  streets.  After  the  first  rush 
of  conscripts  hurrying  to  their  military 
bases  it  might  have  been  imagined  that 
the  reign  of  peace  had  set  in.  While  smaller 
cities  were  swarming  with  soldiers  no  glit 
ter  of  arms  was  reflected  in  the  empty 
avenues  of  the  capital,  no  military  music 
sounded  through  them.  Paris  scorned  all 
show  of  war,  and  fed  the  patriotism  of 

her  children  on  the  mere  sight  of  her  beauty. 

t 

It  was  enough. 

Even  when  the  news  of  the  first  ephem 
eral  successes  in  Alsace  began  to  come  in, 


26  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

the  Parisians  did  not  swerve  from  their 
even  gait.  The  newsboys  did  all  the  shout 
ing  —  and  even  theirs  was  presently  si 
lenced  by  decree.  It  seemed  as  though  it 
had  been  unanimously,  instinctively  de 
cided  that  the  Paris  of  1914  should  in  no 
respect  resemble  the  Paris  of  1870,  and  as 
though  this  resolution  had  passed  at  birth 
into  the  blood  of  millions  born  since  that 
fatal  date,  and  ignorant  of  its  bitter  les 
son.  The  unanimity  of  self-restraint  was 
the  notable  characteristic  of  this  people 
suddenly  plunged  into  an  unsought  and 
unexpected  war.  At  first  their  steadiness 
of  spirit  might  have  passed  for  the  bewil 
derment  of  a  generation  born  and  bred  in 
peace,  which  did  not  yet  understand  what 
war  implied.  But  it  is  precisely  on  such  a 
mood  that  easy  triumphs  might  have  been 
supposed  to  have  the  most  disturbing  ef 
fect.  It  was  the  crowd  in  the  street  that 
shouted  "A  Berlin!"  in  1870;  now  the 
crowd  in  the  street  continued  to  mind  its 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  27 

own  business,  in  spite  of  showers  of  extras 
and  too-sanguine  bulletins. 

I  remember  the  morning  when  our 
butcher's  boy  brought  the  news  that  the 
first  German  flag  had  been  hung  out  on 
the  balcony  of  the  Ministry  of  War.  Now, 
I  thought,  the  Latin  will  boil  over !  And  I 
wanted  to  be  ihere  to  see.  I  hurried  down 
the  quiet  rue  de  Martignac,  turned  the 
corner  of  the  Place  Sainte  Clotilde,  and 
came  on  an  orderly  crowd  filling  the  street 
before  the  Ministry  of  War.  The  crowd 
was  so  orderly  that  the  few  pacific  ges 
tures  of  the  police  easily  cleared  a  way 
for  passing  cabs,  and  for  the  military  mo 
tors  perpetually  dashing  up.  It  was  com 
posed  of  all  classes,  and  there  were  many 
family  groups,  with  little  boys  straddling 
their  mothers'  shoulders,  or  lifted  up  by 
the  policemen  when  they  were  too  heavy 
for  their  mothers.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
there  was  hardly  a  man  or  woman  of  that 
crowd  who  had  not  a  soldier  at  the  front, 


28  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

and  there  before  them  hung  the  enemy's 
first  flag  —  a  splendid  silk  flag,  white  and 
black  and  crimson,  and  embroidered  in 
gold.  It  was  the  flag  of  an  Alsatian  regi 
ment  —  a  regiment  of  Prussianized  Alsace. 
It  symbolized  all  they  most  abhorred  in 
the  whole  abhorrent  job  that  lay  ahead  of 
them;  it  symbolized  also  their  finest  ar 
dour  and  their  noblest  hate,  and  the  rea 
son  why,  if  every  other  reason  failed, 
France  could  never  lay  down  arms  till  the 
last  of  such  flags  was  low.  And  there  they 
stood  and  looked  at  it,  .not  dully  or  un- 
comprehendingly,  but  consciously,  advis 
edly,  and  in  silence:  as  if  already  foreseeing 
all  it  would  cost  to  keep  that  flag  and  add 
to  it  others  like  it:  foreseeing  the  cost  and 
accepting  it.  There  seemed  to  be  men's 
hearts  even  in  the  children  of  that  crowd, 
and  in  the  mothers  whose  weak  arms  held 
them  up.  So  they  gazed  and  went  on,  and 
made  way  for  others  like  them,  who  gazed 
in  their  turn  and  went  on  too.  All  day  the 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  29 

crowd  renewed  itself,  and  it  was  always 
the  same  crowd,  intent  and  understanding 
and  silent,  who  looked  steadily  at  the  flag, 
and  knew  what  its  being  there  meant. 
That,  in  August,  was  the  look  of  Paris. 

in 

FEBRUARY 

FEBRUARY  dusk  on  the  Seine.  The  boats 
are  plying  again,  but  they  stop  at  night 
fall,  and  the  river  is  inky-smooth,  with  the 
same  long  weed-like  reflections  as  in  Au 
gust.  Only  the  reflections  are  fewer  and 
paler:  bright  lights  are  muffled  everywhere. 
The  line  of  the  quays  is  scarcely  discerni 
ble,  and  the  heights  of  the  Trocadero  are 
lost  in  the  blur  of  night,  which  presently 
effaces  even  the  firm  tower-tops  of  Notre- 
Dame.  Down  the  damp  pavements  only  a 
few  street  lamps  throw  their  watery  zig 
zags.  The  shops  are  shut,  and  the  windows 
above  them  thickly  curtained.  The  faces 
of  the  houses  are  all  blind. 


SO  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

In  the  narrow  streets  of  the  Rive  Gauche 
the  darkness  is  even  deeper,  and  the  few 
scattered  lights  in  courts  or  "cites"  cre 
ate  effects  of  Piranesi-like  mystery.  The 
gleam  of  the  chestnut-roaster's  brazier  at 
a  street  corner  deepens  the  sense  of  an  old 
adventurous  Italy,  and  the  darkness  be 
yond  seems  full  of  cloaks  and  conspiracies. 
I  turn,  on  my  way  home,  into  an  empty 
street  between  high  garden  walls,  with  a 
single  light  showing  far  off  at  its  farther 
end.  Not  a  soul  is  in  sight  between  me 
and  that  light:  my  steps  echo  endlessly  in 
the  silence.  Presently  a  dim  figure  comes 
around  the  corner  ahead  of  me.  Man  or 
woman  ?  Impossible  to  tell  till  I  overtake 
it.  The  February  fog  deepens  the  darkness, 
and  the  faces  one  passes  are  indistinguish 
able.  As  for  the  numbers  of  the  houses,  no 
one  thinks  of  looking  for  them.  If  you 
know  the  quarter  you  count  doors  from 
the  corner,  or  try  to  puzzle  out  the  familiar 
outline  of  a  balcony  or  a  pediment;  if  you 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  31 

are  in  a  strange  street,  you  must  ask  at  the 
nearest  tobacconist's  —  for,  as  for  finding 
a  policeman,  a  yard  off  you  couldn't  tell 
him  from  your  grandmother ! 

Such,  after  six  months  of  war,  are  the 
nights  of  Paris;  the  days  are  less  remark 
able  and  less  romantic. 

Almost  all  the  early  flush  and  shiver  of 
romance  is  gone;  or  so  at  least  it  seems  to 
those  who  have  watched  the  gradual  re 
vival  of  life.  It  may  appear  otherwise  to 
observers  from  other  countries,  even  from 
those  involved  in  the  war.  After  London, 
with  all  her  theatres  open,  and  her  ma 
chinery  of  amusement  almost  unimpaired, 
Paris  no  doubt  seems  like  a  city  on  whom 
great  issues  weigh.  But  to  those  who  lived 
through  that  first  sunlit  silent  month  the 
streets  to-day  show  an  almost  normal  ac 
tivity.  The  vanishing  of  all  the  motor- 
buses,  and  of  the  huge  lumbering  com 
mercial  vans,  leaves  many  a  forgotten 
perspective  open  and  reveals  many  a  lost 


32  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

grace  of  architecture;  but  the  taxi-cab*, 
and  private  motors  are  almost  as  abun 
dant  as  in  peace-time,  and  the  peril  of 
pedestrianism  is  kept  at  its  normal  pitch 
by  the  incessant  dashing  to  and  fro  of 
those  unrivalled  engines  of  destruction, 
the  hospital  and  War  Office  motors.  Many 
shops  have  reopened,  a  few  theatres  are 
tentatively  producing  patriotic  drama  or 
mixed  programmes  seasoned  with  senti 
ment  and  mirth,  and  the  cinema  again  un 
rolls  its  eventful  kilometres. 

For  a  while,  in  September  and  October, 
the  streets  were  made  picturesque  by  the 
coming  and  going  of  English  soldiery,  and 
the  aggressive  flourish  of  British  military 
motors.  Then  the  fresh  faces  and  smart 
uniforms  disappeared,  and  now  the  near 
est  approach  to  "militarism"  which  Paris 
offers  to  the  casual  sight-seer  is  the  occa 
sional  drilling  of  a  handful  of  piou-pious 
on  the  muddy  reaches  of  the  Place  des 
Invalides.  But  there  is  another  army  in 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  33 

Paris.  Its  first  detachments  came  months 
ago,  in  the  dark  September  days  —  lamen 
table  rear-guard  of  the  Allies*  retreat  on 
Paris.  Since  then  its  numbers  have  grown 
and  grown,  its  dingy  streams  have  per 
colated  through  all  the  currents  of  Paris 
life,  so  that  wherever  one  goes,  in  every 
quarter  and  at  every  hour,  among  the 
busy  confident  strongly-stepping  Parisians 
one  sees  these  other  people,  dazed  and  slowly 
moving  —  men  and  women  with  sordid 
bundles  on  their  backs,  shuffling  along 
hesitatingly  in  their  tattered  shoes,  chil 
dren  dragging  at  their  hands  and  tired- 
out  babies  pressed  against  their  shoulders: 
the  great  army  of  the  Refugees.  Their  faces 
are  unmistakable  and  unforgettable.  No  one 
who  has  ever  caught  that  stare  of  dumb 
bewilderment  —  or  that  other  look  of  con 
centrated  horror,  full  of  the  reflection  of 
flames  and  ruins  —  can  shake  off  the  ob 
session  of  the  Refugees.  The  look  in  their 
eyes  is  part  of  the  look  of  Paris.  It  is  the 


34  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

dark  shadow  on  the  brightness  of  the  face 
she  turns  to  the  enemy.  These  poor  peo 
ple  cannot  look  across  the  borders  to  even 
tual  triumph.  They  belong  mostly  to  a 
class  whose  knowledge  of  the  world's  af 
fairs  is  measured  by  the  shadow  of  their 
village  steeple.  They  are  no  more  curious 
of  the  laws  of  causation  than  the  thou 
sands  overwhelmed  at  Avezzano.  They 
were  ploughing  and  sowing,  spinning  and 
weaving  and  minding  their  business,  when 
suddenly  a  great  darkness  full  of  fire  and 
blood  came  down  on  them.  And  now  they 
are  here,  in  a  strange  country,  among  un 
familiar  faces  and  new  ways,  with  nothing 
left  to  them  in  the  world  but  the  memory 
of  burning  homes  and  massacred  children 
and  young  men  dragged  to  slavery,  of 
infants  torn  from  their  mothers,  old  men 
trampled  by  drunken  heels  and  priests 
slain  while  they  prayed  beside  the  dying. 
These  are  the  people  who  stand  in  hundreds 
every  day  outside  the  doors  of  the  shelters 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  35 

improvised  to  rescue  them,  and  who  re 
ceive,  in  return  for  the  loss  of  everything 
that  makes  life  sweet,  or  intelligible,  or  at 
least  endurable,  a  cot  in  a  dormitory,  a 
meal-ticket  —  and  perhaps,  on  lucky  days, 
a  pair  of  shoes.  .  . 

What  are  Parisians  doing  meanwhile? 
For  one  thing  —  and  the  sign  is  a  good  one 
—  they  are  refilling  the  shops,  and  es 
pecially,  of  course,  the  great  "department 
stores."  In  the  early  war  days  there  was 
no  stranger  sight  than  those  deserted  pal 
aces,  where  one  strayed  between  miles  of 
unpurchased  wares  in  quest  of  vanished 
salesmen.  A  few  clerks,  of  course,  were 
left:  enough,  one  would  have  thought,  for 
the  rare  purchasers  who  disturbed  their 
meditations.  But  the  few  there  were  did 
not  care  to  be  disturbed:  they  lurked  be 
hind  their  walls  of  sheeting,  their  bastions 
of  flannelette,  as  if  ashamed  to  be  discov 
ered.  And  when  one  had  coaxed  them  out 
they  went  through  the  necessary  gestures 


36  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

automatically,  as  if  mournfully  wonder 
ing  that  any  one  should  care  to  buy.  I 
remember  once,  at  the  Louvre,  seeing  the 
whole  force  of  a  "department,"  including 
the  salesman  I  was  trying  to  cajole  into 
showing  me  some  medicated  gauze,  desert 
their  posts  simultaneously  to  gather  about 
a  motor-cyclist  in  a  muddy  uniform  who 
had  dropped  in  to  see  his  pals  with  tales 
from  the  front.  But  after  six  months  the 
pressure  of  normal  appetites  has  begun  to 
reassert  itself  —  and  to  shop  is  one  of  the 
normal  appetites  of  woman.  I  say  "shop" 
instead  of  buy,  to  distinguish  between  the 
dull  purchase  of  necessities  and  the  volup 
tuousness  of  acquiring  things  one  might 
do  without.  It  is  evident  that  many  of  the 
thousands  now  fighting  their  way  into  the 
great  shops  must  be  indulging  in  the  latter 
delight.  At  a  moment  when  real  wants 
are  reduced  to  a  minimum,  how  else  ac 
count  for  the  congestion  of  the  department 
store?  Even  allowing  for  the  immense,  the 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  37 

perpetual  buying  of  supplies  for  hospitals 
and  work-rooms,  the  incessant  stoking-up 
of  the  innumerable  centres  of  charitable 
production,  there  is  no  explanation  of  the 
crowding  of  the  other  departments  except 
the  fact  that  woman,  however  valiant, 
however  tried,  however  suffering  and  how 
ever  self-denying,  must  eventually,  in  the 
long  run,  and  at  whatever  cost  to  her 
pocket  and  her  ideals,  begin  to  shop  again. 
She  has  renounced  the  theatre,  she  denies 
herself  the  tea-rooms,  she  goes  apologetic 
ally  and  furtively  (and  economically)  to 
concerts  —  but  the  swinging  doors  of  the 
department  stores  suck  her  irresistibly  into 
their  quicksand  of  remnants  and  reductions. 
No  one,  in  this  respect,  would  wish  the 
look  of  Paris  to  be  changed.  It  is  a  good 
sign  to  see  the  crowds  pouring  into  the 
shops  again,  even  though  the  sight  is  less 
interesting  than  that  of  the  other  crowds 
streaming  daily  —  and  on  Sundays  in  im 
mensely  augmented  numbers  —  across  the 


38  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

Pont  Alexandra  III  to  the  great  court  ol 
the  Invalides  where  the  German  trophies 
are  displayed.  Here  the  heart  of  France 
beats  with  a  richer  blood,  and  something 
of  its  glow  passes  into  foreign  veins  as  one 
watches  the  perpetually  renewed  throngs 
face  to  face  with  the  long  triple  row  of 
German  guns.  There  are  few  in  those 
throngs  to  whom  one  of  the  deadly  pack 
has  not  dealt  a  blow;  there  are  personal 
losses,  lacerating  memories,  bound  up  with 
the  sight  of  all  those  evil  engines.  But 
personal  sorrow  is  the  sentiment  least 
visible  in  the  look  of  Paris.  It  is  not  fanci 
ful  to  say  that  the  Parisian  face,  after  six 
months  of  trial,  has  acquired  a  new  char 
acter.  The  change  seems  to  have  affected 
the  very  stuff  it  is  moulded  of,  as  though 
the  long  ordeal  had  hardened  the  poor 
human  clay  into  some  dense  commemora 
tive  substance.  I  often  pass  in  the  street 
women  whose  faces  look  like  memorial 
medals  —  idealized  images  of  what  they 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  39 

were  in  the  flesh.  And  the  masks  of  some 
of  the  men  —  those  queer  tormented  Gal 
lic  masks,  crushed-in  and  squat  and  a 
little  satyr-like  —  look  like  the  bronzes  of 
the  Naples  Museum,  burnt  and  twisted 
from  their  baptism  of  fire.  But  none  of 
these  faces  reveals  a  personal  preoccupa 
tion:  they  are  looking,  one  and  all,  at 
France  erect  on  her  borders.  Even  the 
women  who  are  comparing  different  widths 
of  Valenciennes  at  the  lace-counter  all  have 
something  of  that  vision  in  their  eyes  — 
or  else  one  does  not  see  the  ones  who 
haven't. 

It  is  still  true  of  Paris  that  she  has  not 
the  air  of  a  capital  in  arms.  There  are  as 
few  troops  to  be  seen  as  ever,  and  but  for 
the  coming  and  going  of  the  orderlies  at 
tached  to  the  War  Office  and  the  Military 
Government,  and  the  sprinkling  of  uni 
forms  about  the  doors  of  barracks,  there 
would  be  no  sign  of  war  in  the  streets  — 
no  sign,  that  is,  except  the  presence  of  the 


40  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

wounded.  It  is  only  lately  that  they  have 
begun  to  appear,  for  in  the  early  months 
of  the  war  they  were  not  sent  to  Paris, 
and  the  splendidly  appointed  hospitals  of 
the  capital  stood  almost  empty,  while 
others,  all  over  the  country,  were  over 
crowded.  The  motives  for  this  disposal  of 
the  wounded  have  been  much  speculated 
upon  and  variously  explained:  one  of  its 
results  may  have  been  the  maintaining 
in  Paris  of  the  extraordinary  moral  health 
which  has  given  its  tone  to  the  whole 
country,  and  which  is  now  sound  and 
strong  enough  to  face  the  sight  of  any 
misery. 

And  miseries  enough  it  has  to  face.  Day 
by  day  the  limping  figures  grow  more 
numerous  on  the  pavement,  the  pale  band 
aged  heads  more  frequent  in  passing  car 
riages.  In  the  stalls  at  the  theatres  and 
concerts  there  are  many  uniforms;  and 
their  wearers  usually  have  to  wait  till  the 
hall  is  emptied  before  they  hobble  out  on 


THE  LOOK  OF  PARIS  41 

a  supporting  arm.  Most  of  them  are  very 
young,  and  it  is  the  expression  of  their 
faces  which  I  should  like  to  picture  and 
interpret  as  being  the  very  essence  of  what 
I  have  called  the  look  of  Paris.  They  are 
grave,  these  young  faces:  one  hears  a 
great  deal  of  the  gaiety  in  the  trenches, 
but  the  wounded  are  not  gay.  Neither  are 
they  sad,  however.  They  are  calm,  medi 
tative,  strangely  purified  and  matured.  It 
is  as  though  their  great  experience  had 
purged  them  of  pettiness,  meanness  and  fri 
volity,  burning  them  down  to  the  bare 
bones  of  character,  the  fundamental  sub 
stance  of  the  soul,  and  shaping  that  sub 
stance  into  something  so  strong  and  finely 
tempered  that  for  a  long  time  to  come 
Paris  will  not  care  to  wear  any  look  un 
worthy  of  the  look  on  their  faces. 


IN  ARGONNE 


IN  ARGONNE 


f^HE  permission  to  visit  a  few  ambu- 
-*-     lances  and  evacuation  hospitals  be 
hind   the    lines   gave   me,   at   the   end   of 
February,  my  first  sight  of  War. 

Paris  is  no  longer  included  in  the  mili 
tary  zone,  either  in  fact  or  in  appearance. 
Though  it  is  still  manifestly  under  the 
war-cloud,  its  air  of  reviving  activity  pro 
duces  the  illusion  that  the  menace  which 
casts  that  cloud  is  far  off  not  only  in  dis 
tance  but  in  time.  Paris,  a  few  months  ago 
so  alive  to  the  nearness  of  the  enemy, 
seems  to  have  grown  completely  oblivious 
of  that  nearness;  and  it  is  startling,  not 
more  than  twenty  miles  from  the  gates, 
to  pass  from  such  an  atmosphere  of  work 
aday  security  to  the  imminent  sense  of 

war. 

45 


46  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

Going  eastward,  one  begins  to  feel  the 
change  just  beyond  Meaux.  Between  that 
quiet  episcopal  city  and  the  hill-town  of 
Montmirail,  some  forty  miles  farther  east, 
there  are  no  sensational  evidences  of  the 
great  conflict  of  September  —  only,  here 
and  there,  in  an  unploughed  field,  or  among 
the  fresh  brown  furrows,  a  little  mound 
with  a  wooden  cross  and  a  wreath  on  it. 
Nevertheless,  one  begins  to  perceive,  by 
certain  negative  signs,  that  one  is  already 
in  another  world.  On  the  cold  February 
day  when  we  turned  out  of  Meaux  and 
took  the  road  to  the  Argonne,  the  change 
was  chiefly  shown  by  the  curious  absence 
of  life  in  the  villages  through  which  we 
passed.  Now  and  then  a  lonely  ploughman 
and  his  team  stood  out  against  the  sky,  or 
a  child  and  an  old  woman  looked  from  a 
doorway;  but  many  of  the  fields  were  fal 
low  and  most  of  the  doorways  empty.  We 
passed  a  few  carts  driven  by  peasants, 
a  stray  wood-cutter  in  a  copse,  a  road- 


IN  ARGONNE  47 

mender  hammering  at  his  stones;  but  al 
ready  the  "civilian  motor"  had  disap 
peared,  and  all  the  dust-coloured  cars  dash 
ing  past  us  were  marked  with  the  Red 
Cross  or  the  number  of  an  army  division. 
At  every  bridge  and  railway-crossing  a 
sentinel,  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
road  with  lifted  rifle,  stopped  the  motor 
and  examined  our  papers.  In  this  negative 
sphere  there  was  hardly  any  other  tangible 
proof  of  military  rule;  but  with  the  descent 
of  the  first  hill  beyond  Montmirail  there 
came  the  positive  feeling:  This  is  war! 

Along  the  white  road  rippling  away  east 
ward  over  the  dimpled  country  the  army 
motors  were  pouring  by  in  endless  lines, 
broken  now  and  then  by  the  dark  mass  of 
a  tramping  regiment  or  the  clatter  of  a 
train  of  artillery.  In  the  intervals  between 
these  waves  of  military  traffic  we  had  the 
road  to  ourselves,  except  for  the  flashing 
past  of  despatch-bearers  on  motor-cycles 
and  of  hideously  hooting  little  motors 


48  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

carrying  goggled  officers  in  goat-skins  and 
woollen  helmets. 

The  villages  along  the  road  all  seemed 
empty  —  not  figuratively  but  literally 
empty.  None  of  them  has  suffered  from 
the  German  invasion,  save  by  the  destruc 
tion,  here  and  there,  of  a  single  house  on 
which  some  random  malice  has  wreaked 
itself;  but  since  the  general  flight  in  Sep 
tember  all  have  remained  abandoned,  or 
are  provisionally  occupied  by  troops,  and 
the  rich  country  between  Montmirail  and 
Chalons  is  a  desert. 

The  first  sight  of  Chalons  is  extraordi 
narily  exhilarating.  The  old  town  lying  so 
pleasantly  between  canal  and  river  is  the 
Head-quarters  of  an  army  —  not  of  a  corps 
or  of  a  division,  but  of  a  whole  army  — 
and  the  network  of  grey  provincial  streets 
about  the  Romanesque  towers  of  Notre 
Dame  rustles  with  the  movement  of  war. 
The  square  before  the  principal  hotel  — 
the  incomparably  named  "Haute  Mere- 


IN  ARGONNE  49 

Dieu "  —  is  as  vivid  a  sight  as  any  scene 
of  modern  war  can  be.  Rows  of  grey  motor- 
lorries  and  omnibuses  do  not  lend  them 
selves  to  as  happy  groupings  as  a  de 
tachment  of  cavalry,  and  spitting  and 
spurting  motor-cycles  and  "torpedo"  racers 
are  no  substitute  for  the  glitter  of  helmets 
and  the  curvetting  of  chargers;  but  once 
the  eye  has  adapted  itself  to  the  ugly  lines 
and  the  neutral  tints  of  the  new  warfare, 
the  scene  in  that  crowded  clattering  square 
becomes  positively  brilliant.  It  is  a  vision 
of  one  of  the  central  functions  of  a  great 
war,  in  all  its  concentrated  energy,  without 
the  saddening  suggestions  of  what,  on  the 
distant  periphery,  that  energy  is  daily  and 
hourly  resulting  in.  Yet  even  here  such 
suggestions  are  never  long  out  of  sight; 
for  one  cannot  pass  through  Chalons  with 
out  meeting,  on  their  way  from  the  station, 
a  long  line  of  "eclopes"  —  the  un wounded 
but  battered,  shattered,  frost-bitten,  deaf 
ened  and  half-paralyzed  wreckage  of  the 


50  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

awful  struggle.  These  poor  wretches,  in 
their  thousands,  are  daily  shipped  back 
from  the  front  to  rest  and  be  restored; 
and  it  is  a  grim  sight  to  watch  them  limp 
ing  by,  and  to  meet  the  dazed  stare  of 
eyes  that  have  seen  what  one  dare  not 
picture. 

If  one  could  think  away  the  "eclopes" 
in  the  streets  and  the  wounded  in  the  hos 
pitals,  Chalons  would  be  an  invigorating 
spectacle.  When  we  drove  up  to  the  hotel 
even  the  grey  motors  and  the  sober  uni 
forms  seemed  to  sparkle  under  the  cold 
sky.  The  continual  coming  and  going  of 
alert  and  busy  messengers,  the  riding  up 
of  officers  (for  some  still  ride!),  the  arrival 
of  much-decorated  military  personages  in 
luxurious  motors,  the  hurrying  to  and  fro 
of  orderlies,  the  perpetual  depleting  and 
refilling  of  the  long  rows  of  grey  vans 
across  the  square,  the  movements  of  Red 
Cross  ambulances  and  the  passing  of  de 
tachments  for  the  front,  all  these  are  sights 


IN  ARGONNE  51 

that  the  pacific  stranger  could  forever 
gape  at.  And  in  the  hotel,  what  a  clatter 
of  swords,  what  a  piling  up  of  fur  coats 
and  haversacks,  what  a  grouping  of  bronzed 
energetic  heads  about  the  packed  tables 
in  the  restaurant !  It  is  not  easy  for  civil 
ians  to  get  to  Chalons,  and  almost  every 
table  is  occupied  by  officers  and  soldiers 
—  for,  once  off  duty,  there  seems  to  be  no 
rank  distinction  in  this  happy  democratic 
army,  and  the  simple  private,  if  he  chooses 
to  treat  himself  to  the  excellent  fare  of 
the  Haute  Mere-Dieu,  has  as  good  a  right 
to  it  as  his  colonel. 

The  scene  in  the  restaurant  is  inexhausti 
bly  interesting.  The  mere  attempt  to  puz 
zle  out  the  different  uniforms  is  absorbing. 
A  week's  experience  near  the  front  con 
vinces  me  that  no  two  uniforms  in  the 
French  army  are  alike  either  in  colour  or 
in  cut.  Within  the  last  two  years  the  ques 
tion  of  colour  has  greatly  preoccupied  the 
French  military  authorities,  who  have  been 


52  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

seeking  an  invisible  blue;  and  the  range 
of  their  experiments  is  proved  by  the  ex 
traordinary  variety  of  shades  of  blue,  rang 
ing  from  a  sort  of  greyish  robin's-egg  to 
the  darkest  navy,  in  which  the  army  is 
clothed.  The  result  attained  is  the  con 
viction  that  no  blue  is  really  inconspicu' 
ous,  and  that  some  of  the  harsh  new  slaty 
tints  are  no  less  striking  than  the  deeper 
shades  they  have  superseded.  But  to  this 
scale  of  experimental  blues,  other  colours 
must  be  added:  the  poppy-red  of  the 
Spahis'  tunics,  and  various  other  less  famil 
iar  colours  —  grey,  and  a  certain  greenish 
khaki --the  use  of  which  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  cloth  supply  has  given  out 
and  that  all  available  materials  are  em 
ployed.  As  for  the  differences  in  cut,  the 
uniforms  vary  from  the  old  tight  tunic  to 
the  loose  belted  jacket  copied  from  the 
English,  and  the  emblems  of  the  various 
arms  and  ranks  embroidered  on  these 
diversified  habits  add  a  new  element  of 


IN  ARGONNE  53 

perplexity.  The  aviator's  wings,  the  motor 
ist's  wheel,  and  many  of  the  newer  sym 
bols,  are  easily  recognizable  —  but  there 
are  all  the  other  arms,  and  the  doctors 
and  the  stretcher-bearers,  the  sappers  and 
miners,  and  heaven  knows  how  many  more 
ramifications  of  this  great  host  which  is 
really  all  the  nation. 

The  main  interest  of  the  scene,  however, 
is  that  it  shows  almost  as  many  types  as 
uniforms,  and  that  almost  all  the  types 
are  so  good.  One  begins  to  understand  (if 
one  has  failed  to  before)  why  the  French 
say  of  themselves:  "La  France  est  une 
nation  guerriere."  War  is  the  greatest  of 
paradoxes:  the  most  senseless  and  disheart 
ening  of  human  retrogressions,  and  yet 
the  stimulant  of  qualities  of  soul  which, 
in  every  race,  can  seemingly  find  no  other 
means  of  renewal.  Everything  depends, 
therefore,  on  the  category  of  impulses  that 
war  excites  in  a  people.  Looking  at  the 
faces  at  Chalons,  one  sees  at  once  in  which 


54  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

sense  the  French  are  "une  nation  guer- 
riere."  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  war 
has  given  beauty  to  faces  that  were  inter 
esting,  humorous,  acute,  malicious,  a  hun 
dred  vivid  and  expressive  things,  but  last 
and  least  of  all  beautiful.  Almost  all  the 
faces  about  these  crowded  tables  —  young 
or  old,  plain  or  handsome,  distinguished  or 
average  —  have  the  same  look  of  quiet 
authority:  it  is  as  though  all  "nervosity," 
fussiness,  little  personal  oddities,  mean 
nesses  and  vulgarities,  had  been  burnt 
away  in  a  great  flame  of  self -dedication. 
It  is  a  wonderful  example  of  the  rapidity 
with  which  purpose  models  the  human 
countenance.  More  than  half  of  these  men 
were  probably  doing  dull  or  useless  or  un 
important  things  till  the  first  of  last  Au 
gust;  now  each  one  of  them,  however  small 
his  job,  is  sharing  in  a  great  task,  and 
knows  it,  and  has  been  made  over  by 
knowing  it. 

Our  road  on  leaving  Chalons  continued 


g 

I 


56  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

to  run  northeastward  toward  the  hills  of 
the  Argonne. 

We  passed  through  more  deserted  vil 
lages,  with  soldiers  lounging  in  the  doors 
where  old  women  should  have  sat  with 
their  distaffs,  soldiers  watering  their  horses 
in  the  village  pond,  soldiers  cooking  over 
gypsy  fires  in  the  farm -yards.  In  the 
patches  of  woodland  along  the  road  we 
came  upon  more  soldiers,  cutting  down 
pine  saplings,  chopping  them  into  even 
lengths  and  loading  them  on  hand-carts, 
with  the  green  boughs  piled  on  top.  We 
soon  saw  to  what  use  they  were  put,  for 
at  every  cross-road  or  railway  bridge  a 
warm  sentry-box  of  mud  and  straw  and 
plaited  pine-branches  was  plastered  against 
a  bank  or  tucked  like  a  swallow's  nest  into 
a  sheltered  corner.  A  little  farther  on  we 
began  to  come  more  and  more  frequently 
on  big  colonies  of  "Seventy-fives."  Drawn 
up  nose  to  nose,  usually  against  a  curtain 
of  woodland,  in  a  field  at  some  distance 


IN  ARGONNE  57 

from  the  road,  and  always  attended  by  a 
cumbrous  drove  of  motor- vans,  they  looked 
like  giant  gazelles  feeding  among  elephants; 
and  the  stables  of  woven  pine-boughs 
which  stood  near  by  might  have  been 
the  huge  huts  of  their  herdsmen. 

The  country  between  Marne  and  Meuse 
is  one  of  the  regions  on  which  German 
fury  spent  itself  most  bestially  during  the 
abominable  September  days.  Half  way  be 
tween  Chalons  and  Sainte  Menehould  we 
came  on  the  first  evidence  of  the  invasion: 
the  lamentable  ruins  of  the  village  of  Auve. 
These  pleasant  villages  of  the  Aisne,  with 
their  one  long  street,  their  half-timbered 
houses  and  high-roofed  granaries  with  es- 
paliered  gable-ends,  are  all  much  of  one 
pattern,  and  one  can  easily  picture  what 
Auve  must  have  been  as  it  looked  out, 
in  the  blue  September  weather,  above  the 
ripening  pears  of  its  gardens  to  the  crops 
in  the  valley  and  the  large  landscape  be 
yond.  Now  it  is  a  mere  waste  of  rubble 


58  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

and  cinders,  not  one  threshold  distinguish 
able  from  another.  We  saw  many  other 
ruined  villages  after  Auve,  but  this  was  the 
first,  and  perhaps  for  that  reason  one  had 
there,  most  hauntingly,  the  vision  of  all 
the  separate  terrors,  anguishes,  uprootings 
and  rendings  apart  involved  in  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  obscurest  of  human  communi 
ties.  The  photographs  on  the  walls,  the 
twigs  of  withered  box  above  the  crucifixes, 
the  old  wedding-dresses  in  brass-clamped 
trunks,  the  bundles  of  letters  laboriously 
written  and  as  painfully  deciphered,  all 
the  thousand  and  one  bits  of  the  past  that 
give  meaning  and  continuity  to  the  pres 
ent  —  of  all  that  accumulated  warmth 
nothing  was  left  but  a  brick-heap  and 
some  twisted  stove-pipes ! 

As  we  ran  on  toward  Sainte  Menehould 
the  names  on  our  map  showed  us  that, 
just  beyond  the  parallel  range  of  hills  six 
or  seven  miles  to  the  north,  the  two  armies 
lay  interlocked.  But  we  heard  no  cannon 


IN  ARGONNE  59 

yet,  and  the  first  visible  evidence  of  the 
nearness  of  the  struggle  was  the  encoun 
ter,  at  a  bend  of  the  road,  of  a  long  line 
of  grey-coated  figures  tramping  toward 
us  between  the  bayonets  of  their  captors. 
They  were  a  sturdy  lot,  this  fresh  "bag" 
from  the  hills,  of  a  fine  fighting  age,  and 
much  less  famished  and  war-worn  than  one 
could  have  wished.  Their  broad  blond  faces 
were  meaningless,  guarded,  but  neither  de 
fiant  nor  unhappy:  they  seemed  none  too 
sorry  for  their  fate. 

Our  pass  from  the  General  Head-quar 
ters  carried  us  to  Sainte  Menehould  on 
the  edge  of  the  Argonne,  where  we  had  to 
apply  to  the  Head-quarters  of  the  division 
for  a  farther  extension.  The  Staff  are 
lodged  in  a  house  considerably  the  worse 
for  German  occupancy,  where  offices  have 
been  improvised  by  means  of  wooden 
hoardings,  and  where,  sitting  in  a  bare 
passage  on  a  frayed  damask  sofa  sur 
mounted  by  theatrical  posters  and  faced 


60  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

by  a  bed  with  a  plum-coloured  counter 
pane,  we  listened  for  a  while  to  the  jingle 
of  telephones,  the  rat-tat  of  typewriters, 
the  steady  hum  of  dictation  and  the  com 
ing  and  going  of  hurried  despatch-bearers 
and  orderlies.  The  extension  to  the  permit 
was  presently  delivered  with  the  courteous 
request  that  we  should  push  on  to  Verdun 
as  fast  as  possible,  as  civilian  motors  were 
not  wanted  on  the  road  that  afternoon; 
and  this  request,  coupled  with  the  evident 
stir  of  activity  at  Head-quarters,  gave  us 
the  impression  that  there  must  be  a  good 
deal  happening  beyond  the  low  line  of 
hills  to  the  north.  How  much  there  was  we 
were  soon  to  know. 

We  left  Sainte  Menehould  at  about 
eleven,  and  before  twelve  o'clock  we  were 
nearing  a  large  village  on  a  ridge  from 
which  the  land  swept  away  to  right  and 
left  in  ample  reaches.  The  first  glimpse  of 
the  outlying  houses  showed  nothing  un 
usual;  but  presently  the  main  street  turned. 


IN  ARGONNE  61 

and  dipped  downward,  and  below  and 
beyond  us  lay  a  long  stretch  of  ruins:  the 
calcined  remains  of  Clermont-en-Argonne, 
destroyed  by  the  Germans  on  the  4th  of 
September.  The  free  and  lofty  situation  of 
the  little  town  —  for  it  was  really  a  good 
deal  more  than  a  village  —  makes  its  pres 
ent  state  the  more  lamentable.  One  can 
see  it  from  so  far  off,  and  through  the  torn 
traceries  of  its  ruined  church  the  eye 
travels  over  so  lovely  a  stretch  of  country ! 
No  doubt  its  beauty  enriched  the  joy  of 
wrecking  it. 

At  the  farther  end  of  what  was  once  the 
main  street  another  small  knot  of  houses 
has  survived.  Chief  among  them  is  the 
Hospice  for  old  men,  where  Sister  Gabri- 
elle  Rosnet,  when  the  authorities  of  Cler- 
mont  took  to  their  heels,  stayed  behind 
to  defend  her  charges,  and  where,  ever 
since,  she  has  nursed  an  undiminishing 
stream  of  wounded  from  the  eastern  front. 
We  found  Soeur  Rosnet,  with  her  Sisters, 


62  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

preparing  the  midday  meal  of  her  patients 
in  the  little  kitchen  of  the  Hospice:  the 
kitchen  which  is  also  her  dining-room  and 
private  office.  She  insisted  on  our  finding 
time  to  share  the  filet  and  fried  potatoes 
that  were  just  being  taken  off  the  stove, 
and  while  we  lunched  she  told  us  the  story 
of  the  invasion  —  of  the  Hospice  doors 
broken  down  "a  coups  de  crosse"  and  the 
grey  officers  bursting  in  with  revolvers, 
and  finding  her  there  before  them,  in  the 
big  vaulted  vestibule,  "alone  with  my  old 
men  and  my  Sisters."  Sceur  Gabrielle 
Rosnet  is  a  small  round  active  woman, 
with  a  shrewd  and  ruddy  face  of  the  type 
that  looks  out  calmly  from  the  dark  back 
ground  of  certain  Flemish  pictures.  Her 
blue  eyes  are  full  of  warmth  and  humour, 
and  she  puts  as  much  gaiety  as  wrath  into 
her  tale.  She  does  not  spare  epithets  in 
talking  of  "ces  satanes  Allemands"  —  these 
Sisters  and  nurses  of  the  front  have  seen 
sights  to  dry  up  the  last  drop  of  senti- 


IN  ARGONNE  63 

mental  pity  —  but  through  all  the  horror 
of  those  fierce  September  days,  with  Cler- 
mont  blazing  about  her  and  the  helpless 
remnant  of  its  inhabitants  under  the  per 
petual  threat  of  massacre,  she  retained  her 
sense  of  the  little  inevitable  absurdities  of 
life,  such  as  her  not  knowing  how  to  ad 
dress  the  officer  in  command  "  because  he 
was  so  tall  that  I  couldn't  see  up  to 
his  shoulder-straps."  —  "Et  its  etaient  tons 
comme  fa,"  she  added,  a  sort  of  reluctant 
admiration  in  her  eyes. 

A  subordinate  "good  Sister"  had  just 
cleared  the  table  and  poured  out  our  coffee 
when  a  woman  came  in  to  say,  in  a  matter- 
of-fact  tone,  that  there  was  hard  fighting 
going  on  across  the  valley.  She  added 
calmly,  as  she  dipped  our  plates  into  a 
tub,  that  an  obus  had  just  fallen  a  mile 
or  two  off,  and  that  if  we  liked  we  could 
see  the  fighting  from  a  garden  over  the 
way.  It  did  not  take  us  long  to  reach  that 
garden !  Sceur  Gabrielle  showed  the  way, 


64  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

bouncing  up  the  stairs  of  a  house  across 
the  street,  and  flying  at  her  heels  we  came 
out  on  a  grassy  terrace  full  of  soldiers. 

The  cannon  were  booming  without  a 
pause,  and  seemingly  so  near  that  it  was 
bewildering  to  look  out  across  empty  fields 
at  a  hillside  that  seemed  like  any  other. 
But  luckily  somebody  had  a  field-glass,  and 
with  its  help  a  little  corner  of  the  battle 
of  Vauquois  was  suddenly  brought  close 
to  us  —  the  rush  of  French  infantry  up 
the  slopes,  the  feathery  drift  of  French 
gun-smoke  lower  down,  and,  high  up,  on 
the  wooded  crest  along  the  sky,  the  red 
lightnings  and  white  puffs  of  the  German 
artillery.  Rap,  rap,  rap,  went  the  answer 
ing  guns,  as  the  troops  swept  up  and  dis 
appeared  into  the  fire-tongued  wood;  and 
we  stood  there  dumbfounded  at  the  acci 
dent  of  having  stumbled  on  this  visible 
episode  of  the  great  subterranean  struggle. 

Though  Soeur  Rosnet  had  seen  too  many 
such  sights  to  be  much  moved,  she  was 


IN  ARGONNE  65 

full  of  a  lively  curiosity,  and  stood  beside 
us,  squarely  planted  in  the  mud,  holding 
the  field-glass  to  her  eyes,  or  passing  it 
laughingly  about  among  the  soldiers.  But 
as  we  turned  to  go  she  said:  "They  've  sent 
us  word  to  be  ready  for  another  four  hun 
dred  to-night";  and  the  twinkle  died  out 
of  her  good  eyes. 

Her  expectations  were  to  be  dreadfully 
Surpassed;  for,  as  we  learned  a  fortnight 
later  from  a  three  column  communique,  the 
scene  we  had  assisted  at  was  no  less  than 
the  first  act  of  the  successful  assault  on  the 
high-perched  village  of  Vauquois,  a  point 
of  the  first  importance  to  the  Germans, 
since  it  masked  their  operations  to  the 
north  of  Varennes  and  commanded  the 
railway  by  which,  since  September,  they 
have  been  revictualling  and  reinforcing 
their  army  in  the  Argonne.  Vauquois  had 
been  taken  by  them  at  the  end  of  Septem 
ber  and,  thanks  to  its  strong  position  on 
a  rocky  spur,  had  been  almost  impregnably 


66  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

fortified;  but  the  attack  we  looked  on  at 
from  the  garden  of  Clermont,  on  Sunday, 
February  28th,  carried  the  victorious  French 
troops  to  the  top  of  the  ridge,  and  made 
them  masters  of  a  part  of  the  village. 
Driven  from  it  again  that  night,  they  were 
to  retake  it  after  a  five  days'  struggle  of 
exceptional  violence  and  prodigal  heroism, 
and  are  now  securely  established  there  in 
a  position  described  as  "of  vital  impor 
tance  to  the  operations."  "But  what  it 
cost!"  Sceur  Gabrielle  said,  when  we  saw 
her  again  a  few  days  later. 


ii 

THE  time  had  come  to  remember  our 
promise  and  hurry  away  from  Clermont; 
but  a  few  miles  farther  our  attention  was 
arrested  by  the  sight  of  the  Red  Cross 
over  a  village  house.  The  house  was  little 
more  than  a  hovel,  the  village  —  Blercourt 
it  was  called  —  a  mere  hamlet  of  scattered 


IN  ARGONNE  67 

cottages  and  cow-stables:  a  place  so  easily 
overlooked  that  it  seemed  likely  our  sup 
plies  might  be  needed  there. 

An  orderly  went  to  find  the  mededn-chef, 
and  we  waded  after  him  through  the  mud 
to  one  after  another  of  the  cottages  in 
which,  with  admirable  ingenuity,  he  had 
managed  to  create  out  of  next  to  nothing 
the  indispensable  requirements  of  a  second- 
line  ambulance:  sterilizing  and  disinfect 
ing  appliances,  a  bandage-room,  a  phar 
macy,  a  well-filled  wood-shed,  and  a  clean 
kitchen  in  which  "tisanes"  were  brewing 
over  a  cheerful  fire.  A  detachment  of  cav 
alry  was  quartered  in  the  village,  which 
the  trampling  of  hoofs  had  turned  into  a 
great  morass,  and  as  we  picked  our  way 
from  cottage  to  cottage  in  the  doctor's 
wake  he  told  us  of  the  expedients  to  which 
he  had  been  put  to  secure  even  the  few 
hovels  into  which  his  patients  were  crowded. 
It  was  a  complaint  we  were  often  to  hear 
repeated  along  this  line  of  the  front,  where 


68  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

troops  and  wounded  are  packed  in  thou 
sands  into  villages  meant  to  house  four  or 
five  hundred;  and  we  admired  the  skill  and 
devotion  with  which  he  had  dealt  with 
the  difficulty,  and  managed  to  lodge  his 
patients  decently. 

We  came  back  to  the  high-road,  and  he 
asked  us  if  we  should  like  to  see  the  church. 
It  was  about  three  o'clock,  and  in  the  low 
porch  the  cure  was  ringing  the  bell  for 
vespers.  We  pushed  open  the  inner  doors 
and  went  in.  The  church  was  without 
aisles,  and  down  the  nave  stood  four 
rows  of  wooden  cots  with  brown  blankets. 
In  almost  every  one  lay  a  soldier  —  the 
doctor's  "worst  cases"  -few  of  them 
wounded,  the  greater  number  stricken  with 
fever,  bronchitis,  frost-bite,  pleurisy,  or 
some  other  form  of  trench-sickness  too 
severe  to  permit  of  their  being  carried 
farther  from  the  front.  One  or  two  heads 
turned  on  the  pillows  as  we  entered,  but 
for  the  most  part  the  men  did  not  move. 


IN  ARGONNE  69 

The  cure,  meanwhile,  passing  around  to 
the  sacristy,  had  come  out  before  the  altar 
in  his  vestments,  followed  by  a  little  white 
acolyte.  A  handful  of  women,  probably  the 
only  "civil"  inhabitants  left,  and  some  of 
the  soldiers  we  had  seen  about  the  village, 
had  entered  the  church  and  stood  together 
between  the  rows  of  cots;  and  the  service 
began.  It  was  a  sunless  afternoon,  and  the 
picture  was  all  in  monastic  shades  of  black 
and  white  and  ashen  grey:  the  sick  under 
their  earth-coloured  blankets,  their  livid 
faces  against  the  pillows,  the  black  dresses 
of  the  women  (they  seemed  all  to  be  in 
mourning)  and  the  silver  haze  floating  out 
from  the  little  acolyte's  censer.  The  only 
light  in  the  scene  —  the  candle-gleams  on 
the  altar,  and  their  reflection  in  the  em 
broideries  of  the  cure's  chasuble  —  were 
like  a  faint  streak  of  sunset  on  the  winter 
dusk. 

For  a  while  the  long  Latin  cadences 
sounded  on  through  the  church;  but  pres- 


70  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

ently  the  cure  took  up  in  French  the 
Canticle  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  composed 
during  the  war  of  1870,  and  the  little  con 
gregation  joined  their  trembling  voices  in 
the  refrain: 

"Sauvez,  sauvez  la  France, 
Ne  Vabandonnez  pas!" 

The  reiterated  appeal  rose  in  a  sob  above 
the  rows  of  bodies  in  the  nave:  "Sauvez, 
sauvez  la  France"  the  women  wailed  it 
near  the  altar,  the  soldiers  took  it  up  from 
the  door  in  stronger  tones;  but  the  bodies 
in  the  cots  never  stirred,  and  more  and 
more,  as  the  day  faded,  the  church  looked 
like  a  quiet  grave-yard  in  a  battle-field. 

After  we  had  left  Sainte  Menehould  the 
sense  of  the  nearness  and  all-pervading- 
ness  of  the  war  became  even  more  vivid. 
Every  road  branching  away  to  our  left 
was  a  finger  touching  a  red  wound:  Va- 
rennes,  le  Four  de  Paris,  le  Bois  de  la 
Grurie,  were  not  more  than  eight  or  ten 


IN  ARGONNE  71 

miles  to  the  north.  Along  our  own  road  the 
stream  of  motor-vans  and  the  trains  of 
ammunition  grew  longer  and  more  fre 
quent.  Once  we  passed  a  long  line  of  "Sev 
enty-fives"  going  single  file  up  a  hillside, 
farther  on  we  watched  a  big  detachment 
of  artillery  galloping  across  a  stretch  of 
open  country.  The  movement  of  supplies 
was  continuous,  and  every  village  through 
which  we  passed  swarmed  with  soldiers 
busy  loading  or  unloading  the 'big  vans,  or 
clustered  about  the  commissariat  motors 
while  hams  and  quarters  of  beef  were 
handed  out.  As  we  approached  Verdun  the 
cannonade  had  grown  louder  again;  and 
when  we  reached  the  walls  of  the  town  and 
passed  under  the  iron  teeth  of  the  port 
cullis  we  felt  ourselves  in  one  of  the  last 
outposts  of  a  mighty  line  of  defense.  The 
desolation  of  Verdun  is  as  impressive  as 
the  feverish  activity  of  Chalons.  The  civil 
population  was  evacuated  in  September, 
and  only  a  small  percentage  have  returned. 


72  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

Nine-tenths  of  the  shops  are  closed,  and 
as  the  troops  are  nearly  all  in  the  trenches 
there  is  hardly  any  movement  in  the 
streets. 

The  first  duty  of  the  traveller  who  has 
successfully  passed  the  challenge  of  the 
sentinel  at  the  gates  is  to  climb  the  steep 
hill  to  the  citadel  at  the  top  of  the  town. 
Here  the  military  authorities  inspect  one's 
papers,  and  deliver  a  "permis  de  sejour" 
which  must  be  verified  by  the  police  be 
fore  lodgings  can  be  obtained.  We  found 
the  principal  hotel  much  less  crowded  than 
the  Haute  Mere-Dieu  at  Chalons,  though 
many  of  the  officers  of  the  garrison  mess 
there.  The  whole  atmosphere  of  the  place 
was  different:  silent,  concentrated,  passive. 
To  the  chance  observer,  Verdun  appears 
to  live  only  in  its  hospitals;  and  of  these 
there  are  fourteen  within  the  walls  alone. 
As  darkness  fell,  the  streets  became  com 
pletely  deserted,  and  the  cannonade  seemed 
to  grow  nearer  and  more  incessant.  That 


IN  ARGONNE  73 

first  night  the  hush  was  so  intense  that 
every  reverberation  from  the  dark  hills 
beyond  the  walls  brought  out  in  the  mind 
its  separate  vision  of  destruction;  and  then, 
just  as  the  strained  imagination  could  bear 
no  more,  the  thunder  ceased.  A  moment 
later,  in  a  court  below  my  windows,  a 
pigeon  began  to  coo;  and  all  night  long  the 
two  sounds  strangely  alternated.  .  . 

On  entering  the  gates,  the  first  sight  to 
attract  us  had  been  a  colony  of  roughly- 
built  bungalows  scattered  over  the  miry 
slopes  of  a  little  park  adjoining  the  rail 
way  station,  and  surmounted  by  the  sign: 
"Evacuation  Hospital  No.  6."  The  next 
morning  we  went  to  visit  it.  A  part  of  the 
station  buildings  has  been  adapted  to  hos 
pital  use,  and  among  them  a  great  roofless 
hall,  which  the  surgeon  in  charge  has  cov 
ered  in  with  canvas  and  divided  down  its 
length  into  a  double  row  of  tents.  Each 
tent  contains  two  wooden  cots,  scrupu 
lously  clean  and  raised  high  above  the  floor; 


74  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

and  the  immense  ward  is  warmed  by  a 
row  of  stoves  down  the  central  passage. 
In  the  bungalows  across  the  road  are  beds 
for  the  patients  who  are  to  be  kept  for  a 
time  before  being  transferred  to  the  hos 
pitals  in  the  town.  In  one  bungalow  an 
operating-room  has  been  installed,  in  an 
other  are  the  bathing  arrangements  for 
the  newcomers  from  the  trenches.  Every 
possible  device  for  the  relief  of  the  wounded 
has  been  carefully  thought  out  and  intelli 
gently  applied  by  the  surgeon  in  charge 
and  the  infirmiere  major  who  indefatigably 
seconds  him.  Evacuation  Hospital  No.  6 
sprang  up  in  an  hour,  almost,  on  the 
dreadful  August  day  when  four  thousand 
wounded  lay  on  stretchers  between  the 
railway  station  and  the  gate  of  the  little 
park  across  the  way;  and  it  has  gradually 
grown  into  the  model  of  what  such  a  hos 
pital  may  become  in  skilful  and  devoted 
hands. 

Verdun  has  other  excellent  hospitals  for 


IN  ARGONNE  75 

the  care  of  the  severely  wounded  who 
cannot  be  sent  farther  from  the  front. 
Among  them  St.  Nicolas,  in  a  big  airy 
building  on  the  Meuse,  is  an  example  of 
a  great  French  Military  Hospital  at  its 
best;  but  I  visited  few  others,  for  the 
main  object  of  my  journey  was  to  get  to 
some  of  the  second-line  ambulances  be 
yond  the  town.  The  first  we  went  to  was 
in  a  small  village  to  the  north  of  Verdun, 
not  far  from  the  enemy's  lines  at  Cosen- 
voye,  and  was  fairly  representative  of  all 
the  others.  The  dreary  muddy  village  was 
crammed  with  troops,  and  the  ambulance 
had  been  installed  at  haphazard  in  such 
houses  as  the  military  authorities  could 
spare.  The  arrangements  were  primitive 
but  clean,  and  even  the  dentist  had  set 
up  his  apparatus  in  one  of  the  rooms.  The 
men  lay  on  mattresses  or  in  wooden  cots, 
and  the  rooms  were  heated  by  stoves.  The 
great  need,  here  as  everywhere,  was  for 
blankets  and  clean  underclothing;  for  the 


76  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

wounded  are  brought  in  from  the  front 
encrusted  with  frozen  mud,  and  usually 
without  having  washed  or  changed  for 
weeks.  There  are  no  women  nurses  in  these 
second-line  ambulances,  but  all  the  army 
doctors  we  saw  seemed  intelligent,  and 
anxious  to  do  the  best  they  could  for  their 
men  in  conditions  of  unusual  hardship. 
The  principal  obstacle  in  their  way  is  the 
over-crowded  state  of  the  villages.  Thou 
sands  of  soldiers  are  camped  in  all  of  them, 
in  hygienic  conditions  that  would  be  bad 
enough  for  men  in  health;  and  there  is 
also  a  great  need  for  light  diet,  since  the 
hospital  commissariat  of  the  front  appar 
ently  supplies  no  invalid  foods,  and  men 
burning  with  fever  have  to  be  fed  on  meat 
and  vegetables. 

In  the  afternoon  we  started  out  again 
in  a  snow-storm,  over  a  desolate  rolling 
country  to  the  south  of  Verdun.  The  wind 
blew  fiercely  across  the  whitened  slopes, 
and  no  one  was  in  sight  but  the  sentries 


IN  ARGONNE  77 

marching  up  and  down  the  railway  lines, 
and  an  occasional  cavalryman  patrolling 
the  lonely  road.  Nothing  can  exceed  the 
mournfulness  of  this  depopulated  land:  we 
might  have  been  wandering  over  the  wilds 
of  Poland.  We  ran  some  twenty  miles 
down  the  steel-grey  Meuse  to  a  village 
about  four  miles  west  of  Les  Eparges,  the 
spot  where,  for  weeks  past,  a  desperate 
struggle  had  been  going  on.  There  must 
have  been  a  lull  in  the  fighting  that  day, 
for  the  cannon  had  ceased;  but  the  scene 
at  the  point  where  we  left  the  motor  gave 
us  the  sense  of  being  on  the  very  edge  of 
the  conflict.  The  long  straggling  village  lay 
on  the  river,  and  the  trampling  of  cavalry 
and  the  hauling  of  guns  had  turned  the 
land  about  it  into  a  mud-flat.  Before  the 
primitive  cottage  where  the  doctor's  office 
had  been  installed  were  the  motors  of  the 
surgeon  and  the  medical  inspector  who 
had  accompanied  us.  Near  by  stood  the 
usual  flock  of  grey  motor-vans,  and  all 


78  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

about  was  the  coming  and  going  of  cavalry 
remounts,  the  riding  up  of  officers,  the, 
unloading  of  supplies,  the  incessant  activ 
ity  of  mud-splashed  sergeants  and  men. 

The  main  ambulance  was  in  a  grange, 
of  which  the  two  stories  had  been  parti 
tioned  off  into  wards.  Under  the  cobwebby 
rafters  the  men  lay  in  rows  on  clean  pal 
lets,  and  big  stoves  made  the  rooms  dry 
and  warm.  But  the  great  superiority  of 
this  ambulance  was  its  nearness  to  a  canal- 
boat  which  had  been  fitted  up  with  hot 
douches.  The  boat  was  spotlessly  clean, 
and  each  cabin  was  shut  off  by  a  gay  cur 
tain  of  red-flowered  chintz.  Those  curtains 
must  do  almost  as  much  as  the  hot  water 
to  make  over  the  morale  of  the  men:  they 
were  the  most  comforting  sight  of  the  day. 

Farther  north,  and  on  the  other  bank 
of  the  Meuse,  lies  another  large  village 
which  has  been  turned  into  a  colony  of 
eclopes.  Fifteen  hundred  sick  or  exhausted 
men  are  housed  there  —  and  there  are  no 


IN  ARGONNE  79 

hot  douches  or  chintz  curtains  to  cheer 
them !  We  were  taken  first  to  the  church, 
a  large  featureless  building  at  the  head  of 
the  street.  In  the  doorway  our  passage  was 
obstructed  by  a  mountain  of  damp  straw 
which  a  gang  of  hostler-soldiers  were  pitch 
forking  out  of  the  aisles.  The  interior  of 
the  church  was  dim  and  suffocating.  Be 
tween  the  pillars  hung  screens  of  plaited 
straw,  forming  little  enclosures  in  each  of 
which  about  a  dozen  sick  men  lay  on  more 
straw,  without  mattresses  or  blankets.  No 
beds,  no  tables,  no  chairs,  no  washing  ap 
pliances  —  in  their  muddy  clothes,  as  they 
come  from  the  front,  they  are  bedded  down 
on  the  stone  floor  like  cattle  till  they  are 
well  enough  to  go  back  to  their  job.  It 
was  a  pitiful  contrast  to  the  little  church 
at  Blercourt,  with  the  altar  lights  twin 
kling  above  the  clean  beds;  and  one  won 
dered  if,  even  so  near  the  front,  it  had  to 
be.  "The  African  village,  we  call  it,"  one 
of  our  companions  said  with  a  laugh:  but 


80  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

the  African  village  has  blue  sky  over  it, 
and  a  clear  stream  runs  between  its  mud 
huts. 

We  had  been  told  at  Sainte  Menehould 
that,  for  military  reasons,  we  must  follow 
a  more  southerly  direction  on  our  return 
to  Chalons;  and  when  we  left  Verdun  we 
took  the  road  to  Bar-le-Duc.  It  runs  south 
west  over  beautiful  broken  country,  un 
touched  by  war  except  for  the  fact  that  its 
villages,  like  all  the  others  in  this  region, 
are  either  deserted  or  occupied  by  troops. 
As  we  left  Verdun  behind  us  the  sound  of 
the  cannon  grew  fainter  and  died  out,  and 
we  had  the  feeling  that  we  were  gradually 
passing  beyond  the  flaming  boundaries 
into  a  more  normal  world;  but  suddenly, 
at  a  cross-road,  a  sign -post  snatched  us 
back  to  war:  St.  Mihiel,  18  Kilometres.  St. 
Mihiel,  the  danger-spot  of  the  region,  the 
weak  joint  in  the  armour !  There  it  lay, 
up  that  harmless-looking  bye-road,  not 
much  more  than  ten  miles  away  —  a  ten 


IN  ARGONNE  81 

minutes'  dash  would  have  brought  us  into 
the  thick  of  the  grey  coats  and  spiked  hel 
mets  !  The  shadow  of  that  sign-post  fol 
lowed  us  for  miles,  darkening  the  landscape 
like  the  shadow  from  a  racing  storm-cloud. 

Bar-le-Duc  seemed  unaware  of  the  cloud. 
The  charming  old  town  was  in  its  normal 
state  of  provincial  apathy:  few  soldiers 
were  about,  and  here  at  last  civilian  life 
again  predominated.  After  a  few  days  on 
the  edge  of  the  war,  in  that  intermediate 
region  under  its  solemn  spell,  there  is  some 
thing  strangely  lowering  to  the  mood  in 
the  first  sight  of  a  busy  unconscious  com 
munity.  One  looks  instinctively,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  passers  by,  for  a  reflection  of 
that  other  vision,  and  feels  diminished  by 
contact  with  people  going  so  indifferently 
about  their  business. 

A  little  way  beyond  Bar-le-Duc  we  came 
on  another  phase  of  the  war- vision,  for  our 
route  lay  exactly  in  the  track  of  the  Au 
gust  invasion,  and  between  Bar-le-Duc 


82  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

and  Vitry-le-Frangois  the  high-road  is  lined 
with  ruined  towns.  The  first  we  came  to 
was  Laimont,  a  large  village  wiped  out  as 
if  a  cyclone  had  beheaded  it;  then  comes 
Revigny,  a  town  of  over  two  thousand  in 
habitants,  less  completely  levelled  because 
its  houses  were  more  solidly  built,  but  a 
spectacle  of  more  tragic  desolation,  with 
its  wide  streets  winding  between  scorched 
and  contorted  fragments  of  masonry,  bits 
of  shop-fronts,  handsome  doorways,  the 
colonnaded  court  of  a  public  building.  A 
few  miles  farther  lies  the  most  piteous  of 
the  group :  the  village  of  Heiltz-le-Maurupt, 
once  pleasantly  set  in  gardens  and  or 
chards,  now  an  ugly  waste  like  the  others, 
and  with  a  little  church  so  stripped  and 
wounded  and  dishonoured  that  it  lies  there 
by  the  roadside  like  a  human  victim. 

In  this  part  of  the  country,  which  is 
one  of  many  cross-roads,  we  began  to  have 
unexpected  difficulty  in  finding  our  way, 
for  the  names  and  distances  on  the  mile- 


IN  ARGONNE  83 

stones  have  all  been  effaced,  the  sign-posts 
thrown  down  and  the  enamelled  plaques 
on  the  houses  at  the  entrance  to  the  vil 
lages  removed.  One  report  has  it  that  this 
precaution  was  taken  by  the  inhabitants 
at  the  approach  of  the  invading  army,  an 
other  that  the  Germans  themselves  de 
molished  the  sign-posts  and  plastered  over 
the  mile-stones  in  order  to  paint  on  them 
misleading  and  encouraging  distances.  The 
result  is  extremely  bewildering,  for,  all  the 
villages  being  either  in  ruins  or  uninhab 
ited,  there  is  no  one  to  question  but  the 
soldiers  one  meets,  and  their  answer  is 
almost  invariably:  "We  don't  know  —  we 
don't  belong  here."  One  is  in  luck  if  one 
comes  across  a  sentinel  who  knows  the 
name  of  the  village  he  is  guarding. 

It  was  the  strangest  of  sensations  to 
find  ourselves  in  a  chartless  wilderness 
within  sixty  or  seventy  miles  of  Paris,  and 
to  wander,  as  we  did,  for  hours  across  a 
high  heathery  waste,  with  wide  blue  dis- 


84  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

tances  to  north  and  south,  and  in  all  the 
scene  not  a  landmark  by  means  of  which 
we  could  make  a  guess  at  our  whereabouts. 
One  of  our  haphazard  turns  at  last  brought 
us  into  a  muddy  bye-road  with  long  lines 
of  "Seventy-fives"  ranged  along  its  banks 
like  grey  ant-eaters  in  some  monstrous 
menagerie.  A  little  farther  on  we  came  to 
a  bemired  village  swarming  with  artillery 
and  cavalry,  and  found  ourselves  in  the 
thick  of  an  encampment  just  on  the  move. 
It  seems  improbable  that  we  were  meant 
to  be  there,  for  our  arrival  caused  such 
surprise  that  no  sentry  remembered  to 
challenge  us,  and  obsequiously  saluting 
sous-qfftciers  instantly  cleared  a  way  for 
the  motor.  So,  by  a  happy  accident,  we 
caught  one  more  war-picture,  all  of  ve 
hement  movement,  as  we  passed  out  of 
the  zone  of  war. 

We  were  still  very  distinctly  in  it  on  re 
turning  to  Chalons,  which,  if  it  had  seemed 
packed  on  our  previous  visit,  was  now 


IN  ARGONNE  85 

quivering  and  cracking  with  fresh  crowds. 
The  stir  about  the  fountain,  in  the  square 
before  the  Haute  Mere-Dieu,  was  more 
melodramatic  than  ever.  Every  one  was 
in  a  hurry,  every  one  booted  and  mud- 
splashed,  and  spurred  or  sworded  or  des 
patch-bagged,  or  somehow  labelled  as  a 
member  of  the  huge  military  beehive.  The 
privilege  of  telephoning  and  telegraphing 
being  denied  to  civilians  in  the  war-zone, 
it  was  ominous  to  arrive  at  night-fall  on 
such  a  crowded  scene,  and  we  were  not 
surprised  to  be  told  that  there  was  not  a 
room  left  at  the  Haute  Mere-Dieu,  and 
that  even  the  sofas  in  the  reading-room 
had  been  let  for  the  night.  At  every  other 
inn  in  the  town  we  met  with  the  same 
answer;  and  finally  we  decided  to  ask  per 
mission  to  go  on  as  far  as  Epernay,  about 
twelve  miles  off.  At  Head-quarters  we  were 
told  that  our  request  could  not  be  granted. 
No  motors  are  allowed  to  circulate  after 
night-fall  in  the  zone  of  war,  and  the 


86  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

officer  charged  with  the  distribution  of 
motor-permits  pointed  out  that,  even  if 
an  exception  were  made  in  our  favour, 
we  should  probably  be  turned  back  by 
the  first  sentinel  we  met,  only  to  find  our 
selves  unable  to  re-enter  Chalons  without 
another  permit !  This  alternative  was  so 
alarming  that  we  began  to  think  ourselves 
relatively  lucky  to  be  on  the  right  side  of 
the  gates;  and  we  went  back  to  the  Haute 
Mere-Dieu  to  squeeze  into  a  crowded  cor 
ner  of  the  restaurant  for  dinner.  The  hope 
that  some  one  might  have  suddenly  left 
the  hotel  in  the  interval  was  not  realized; 
but  after  dinner  we  learned  from  the  land 
lady  that  she  had  certain  rooms  perma 
nently  reserved  for  the  use  of  the  Staff, 
and  that,  as  these  rooms  had  not  yet  been 
called  for  that  evening,  we  might  possibly 
be  allowed  to  occupy  them  for  the  night. 

At  Chalons  the  Head-quarters  are  in 
the  Prefecture,  a  coldly  handsome  build 
ing  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  there, 


IN  ARGONNE  87 

in  a  majestic  stone  vestibule,  beneath  the 
gilded  ramp  of  a  great  festal  staircase,  we 
waited  in  anxious  suspense,  among  the  or 
derlies  and  estafettes,  while  our  unusual 
request  was  considered.  The  result  of  the 
deliberation  was  an  expression  of  regret: 
nothing  could  be  done  for  us,  as  officers 
might  at  any  moment  arrive  from  the 
General  Head-quarters  and  require  the 
rooms.  It  was  then  past  nine  o'clock,  and 
bitterly  cold  —  and  we  began  to  wonder. 
Finally  the  polite  officer  who  had  been 
charged  to  dismiss  us,  moved  to  compas 
sion  at  our  plight,  offered  to  give  us  a 
laissez-passer  back  to  Paris.  But  Paris  was 
about  a  hundred  and  twenty-five  miles  off, 
the  night  was  dark,  the  cold  was  piercing 
—  and  at  every  cross-road  and  railway 
crossing  a  sentinel  would  have  to  be  con 
vinced  of  our  right  to  go  farther.  We  re 
membered  the  warning  given  us  earlier  in 
the  evening,  and,  declining  the  offer,  went 
out  again  into  the  cold.  And  just  then 


88  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

chance  took  pity  on  us.  In  the  restaurant 
we  had  run  across  a  friend  attached  to  the 
Staff,  and  now,  meeting  him  again  in  the 
depth  of  our  difficulty,  we  were  told  of 
lodgings  to  be  found  near  by.  He  could 
not  take  us  there,  for  it  was  past  the 
hour  when  he  had  a  right  to  be  out,  or 
we  either,  for  that  matter,  since  curfew 
sounds  at  nine  at  Chalons.  But  he  told  us 
how  to  find  our  way  through  the  maze 
of  little  unlit  streets  about  the  Cathedral; 
standing  there  beside  the  motor,  in  the 
icy  darkness  of  the  deserted  square,  and 
whispering  hastily,  as  he  turned  to  leave 
us:  "You  ought  not  to  be  out  so  late;  but 
the  word  tonight  is  Jena.  When  you  give 
it  to  the  chauffeur,  be  sure  no  sentinel 
overhears  you."  With  that  he  was  up  the 
wide  steps,  the  glass  doors  had  closed  on 
him,  and  I  stood  there  in  the  pitch-black 
night,  suddenly  unable  to  believe  that  I 
was  I,  or  Chalons  Chalons,  or  that  a  young 
man  who  in  Paris  drops  in  to  dine  with 


IN  ARGONNE  89 

me  and  talk  over  new  books  and  plays, 
had  been  whispering  a  password  in  my 
ear  to  carry  me  unchallenged  to  a  house  a 
few  streets  away !  The  sense  of  unreality 
produced  by  that  one  word  was  so  over 
whelming  that  for  a  blissful  moment  the 
whole  fabric  of  what  I  had  been  experi 
encing,  the  whole  huge  and  oppressive  and 
unescapable  fact  of  the  war,  slipped  away 
like  a  torn  cobweb,  and  I  seemed  to  see 
behind  it  the  reassuring  face  of  things  as 
they  used  to  be. 

The  next  morning  dispelled  that  vision. 
We  woke  to  a  noise  of  guns  closer  and 
more  incessant  than  even  the  first  night's 
cannonade  at  Verdun;  and  when  we  went 
out  into  the  streets  it  seemed  as  if,  over 
night,  a  new  army  had  sprung  out  of  the 
ground.  Waylaid  at  one  corner  after  an 
other  by  the  long  tide  of  troops  streaming 
out  through  the  town  to  the  northern 
suburbs,  we  saw  in  turn  all  the  various 
divisions  of  the  unfolding  frieze:  first  the 


90  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

infantry  and  artillery,  the  sappers  and  mi 
ners,  the  endless  trains  of  guns  and  am 
munition,  then  the  long  line  of  grey  supply- 
waggons,  and  finally  the  stretcher-bearers 
following  the  Red  Cross  ambulances.  All 
the  story  of  a  day's  warfare  was  written 
in  the  spectacle  of  that  endless  silent  flow 
to  the  front:  and  we  were  to  read  it  again, 
a  few  days  later,  in  the  terse  announce 
ment  of  "renewed  activity"  about  Suippes, 
and  of  the  bloody  strip  of  ground  gained 
between  Perthes  and  Beausejour. 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES 

NANCY,  May  13th,  1915. 
ESIDE  me,  on  my  writing-table,  stands 
a  bunch  of  peonies,  the  jolly  round- 
faced  pink  peonies  of  the  village  garden. 
They  were  picked  this  afternoon  in  the 
garden  of  a  ruined  house  at  Gerbeviller  — 
a  house  so  calcined  and  convulsed  that, 
for  epithets  dire  enough  to  fit  it,  one  would 
have  to  borrow  from  a  Hebrew  prophet 
gloating  over  the  fall  of  a  city  of  idolaters. 
Since  leaving  Paris  yesterday  we  have 
passed  through  streets  and  streets  of  such 
murdered  houses,  through  town  after  town 
spread  out  in  its  last  writhings;  and  before 
the  black  holes  that  were  homes,  along  the 
edge  of  the  chasms  that  were  streets,  every 
where  we  have  seen  flowers  and  vegetables 
springing  up  in  freshly  raked  and  watered 
gardens.  My  pink  peonies  were  not  intro- 

93 


94  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

duced  to  point  the  stale  allegory  of  uncon 
scious  Nature  veiling  Man's  havoc:  they 
are  put  on  my  first  page  as  a  symbol  of  con 
scious  human  energy  coming  back  to  re 
plant  and  rebuild  the  wilderness.  .  . 

Last  March,  in  the  Argonne,  the  towns 
we  passed  through  seemed  quite  dead;  but 
yesterday  new  life  was  budding  every 
where.  We  were  following  another  track  of 
the  invasion,  one  of  the  huge  tiger-scratches 
that  the  Beast  flung  over  the  land  last 
September,  between  Vitry-le-Frangois  and 
Bar-le-Duc.  Etrepy,  Pargny,  Sermaize-les- 
Bains,  Andernay,  are  the  names  of  this 
group  of  victims:  Sermaize  a  pretty  water 
ing-place  along  wooded  slopes,  the  others 
large  villages  fringed  with  farms,  and  all 
now  mere  scrofulous  blotches  on  the  soft 
spring  scene.  But  in  many  we  heard  the 
sound  of  hammers,  and  saw  brick-layers 
and  masons  at  work.  Even  in  the  most 
mortally  stricken  there  were  signs  of  re 
turning  life:  children  playing  among  the 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES     95 

stone  heaps,  and  now  and  then  a  cautious 
older  face  peering  out  of  a  shed  propped 
against  the  ruins.  In  one  place  an  ancient 
tram-car  had  been  converted  into  a  cafe 
and  labelled:  "Au  Restaurant  des  Ruines"; 
and  everywhere  between  the  calcined  walls 
the  carefully  combed  gardens  aligned  their 
radishes  and  lettuce-tops. 

From  Bar-le-Duc  we  turned  northeast, 
and  as  we  entered  the  forest  of  Commercy 
we  began  to  hear  again  the  Voice  of  the 
Front.  It  WPS  the  warmest  and  stillest  of 
May  days,  and  in  the  clearing  where  we 
stopped  for  luncheon  the  familiar  boom 
broke  with  a  magnified  loudness  on  the 
noonday  hush.  In  the  intervals  between 
the  crashes  there  was  not  a  sound  but  the 
gnats'  hum  in  the  moist  sunshine  and  the 
dryad-call  of  the  cuckoo  from  greener 
depths.  At  the  end  of  the  lane  a  few  cav 
alrymen  rode  by  in  shabby  blue,  their 
horses'  flanks  glinting  like  ripe  chestnuts. 
They  stopped  to  chat  and  accept  some 


96  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

cigarettes,  and  when  they  had  trotted  off 
again  the  gnat,  the  cuckoo  and  the  can 
non  took  up  their  trio.  .  . 

The  town  of  Commercy  looked  so  un 
disturbed  that  the  cannonade  rocking  it 
might  have  been  some  unheeded  echo  of 
the  hills.  These  frontier  towns  inured  to 
the  clash  of  war  go  about  their  business 
with  what  one  might  call  stolidity  if  there 
were  not  finer,  and  truer,  names  for  it.  In 
Commercy,  to  be  sure,  there  is  little  busi 
ness  to  go  about  just  now  save  that  con 
nected  with  the  military  occupation;  but 
the  peaceful  look  of  the  sunny  sleepy 
streets  made  one  doubt  if  the  fighting  line 
was  really  less  than  five  miles  away.  .  . 
Yet  the  French,  with  an  odd  perversion  of 
race-vanity,  still  persist  in  speaking  of 
themselves  as  a  "nervous  and  impression 
able"  people ! 

This  afternoon,  on  the  road  to  Gerbe- 
viller,  we  were  again  in  the  track  of  the 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES     97 

September  invasion.  Over  all  the  slopes 
now  cool  with  spring  foliage  the  battle 
rocked  backward  and  forward  during  those 
burning  autumn  days;  and  every  mile  of 
the  struggle  has  left  its  ghastly  traces. 
The  fields  are  full  of  wooden  crosses  which 
the  ploughshare  makes  a  circuit  to  avoid; 
many  of  the  villages  have  been  partly 
wrecked,  and  here  and  there  an  isolated 
ruin  marks  the  nucleus  of  a  fiercer  struggle. 
But  the  landscape,  in  its  first  sweet  leafi- 
ness,  is  so  alive  with  ploughing  and  sowing 
and  all  the  natural  tasks  of  spring,  that 
the  war  scars  seem  like  traces  of  a  long- 
past  woe;  and  it  was  not  till  a  bend  of  the 
road  brought  us  in  sight  of  Gerbeviller  that 
we  breathed  again  the  choking  air  of  pres 
ent  horror. 

Gerbeviller,  stretched  out  at  ease  on  its 
slopes  above  the  Meurthe,  must  have 
been  a  happy  place  to  live  in.  The  streets 
slanted  up  between  scattered  houses  in 
gardens  to  the  great  Louis  XIV  chateau 


98  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

above  the  town  and  the  church  that  bal 
anced  it.  So  much  one  can  reconstruct 
from  the  first  glimpse  across  the  valley; 
but  when  one  enters  the  town  all  perspec 
tive  is  lost  in  chaos.  Gerbeviller  has  taken 
to  herself  the  title  of  "the  martyr  town"; 
an  honour  to  which  many  sister  victims 
might  dispute  her  claim !  But  as  a  sensa 
tional  image  of  havoc  it  seems  improbable 
that  any  can  surpass  her.  Her  ruins  seem 
to  have  been  simultaneously  vomited  up 
from  the  depths  and  hurled  down  from  the 
skies,  as  though  she  had  perished  in  some 
monstrous  clash  of  earthquake  and  tor 
nado;  and  it  fills  one  with  a  cold  despair 
to  know  that  this  double  destruction  was 
no  accident  of  nature  but  a  piously  planned 
and  methodically  executed  human  deed. 
From  the  opposite  heights  the  poor  little 
garden-girt  town  was  shelled  like  a  steel 
fortress;  then,  when  the  Germans  entered, 
a  fire  was  built  in  every  house,  and  at  the 
nicely-timed  right  moment  one  of  the  ex- 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES     99 

plosive  tabloids  which  the  fearless  Teuton 
carries  about  for  his  land-Lusitanias  was 
tossed  on  each  hearth.  It  was  all  so  well 
done  that  one  wonders  —  almost  apolo 
getically  for  German  thoroughness  —  that 
any  of  the  human  rats  escaped  from  their 
holes;  but  some  did,  and  were  neatly 
spitted  on  lurking  bayonets. 

One  old  woman,  hearing  her  son's  death- 
cry,  rashly  looked  out  of  her  door.  A  bullet 
instantly  laid  her  low  among  her  phloxes 
and  lilies;  and  there,  in  her  little  garden, 
her  dead  body  was  dishonoured.  It  seemed 
singularly  appropriate,  in  such  a  scene,  to 
read  above  a  blackened  doorway  the  sign: 
"Monuments  Funebres,"  and  to  observe 
that  the  house  the  doorway  once  belonged 
to  had  formed  the  angle  of  a  lane  called 
"La  Ruelle  des  Orphelines." 

At  one  end  of  the  main  street  of  Gerbe- 
viller  there  once  stood  a  charming  house, 
of  the  sober  old  Lorraine  pattern,  with 
low  door,  deep  roof  and  ample  gables:  it 


100  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

was  in  the  garden  of  this  house  that  my 
pink  peonies  were  picked  for  me  by  its 
owner,  Mr.  Liegeay,  a  former  Mayor  of 
Gerbeviller,  who  witnessed  all  the  horrors 
of  the  invasion. 

Mr.  Liegeay  is  now  living  in  a  neigh 
bour's  cellar,  his  own  being  fully  occupied 
by  the  debris  of  his  charming  house.  He 
told  us  the  story  of  the  three  days  of  the 
German  occupation;  how  he  and  his  wife 
and  niece,  and  the  niece's  babies,  took  to 
their  cellar  while  the  Germans  set  the 
house  on  fire,  and  how,  peering  through  a 
door  into  the  stable-yard,  they  saw  that 
the  soldiers  suspected  they  were  within 
and  were  trying  to  get  at  them.  Luckily 
the  incendiaries  had  heaped  wood  and  straw 
all  round  the  outside  of  the  house,  and  the 
blaze  was  so  hot  that  they  could  not  reach 
the  door.  Between  the  arch  of  the  door 
way  and  the  door  itself  was  a  half-moon 
opening;  and  Mr.  Liegeay  and  his  family, 
during  three  days  and  three  nights,  broke 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES   101 

up  all  the  barrels  in  the  cellar  and  threw 
the  bits  out  through  the  opening  to  feed 
the  fire  in  the  yard. 

Finally,  on  the  third  day,  when  they 
began  to  be  afraid  that  the  ruins  of  the 
house  would  fall  in  on  them,  they  made  a 
dash  for  safety.  The  house  was  on  the 
edge  of  the  town,  and  the  women  and 
children  managed  to  get  away  into  the 
country;  but  Mr.  Liegeay  was  surprised 
in  his  garden  by  a  German  soldier.  He 
made  a  rush  for  the  high  wall  of  the  ad 
joining  cemetery,  and  scrambling  over  it 
slipped  down  between  the  wall  and  a  big 
granite  cross.  The  cross  was  covered  with 
the  hideous  wire  and  glass  wreaths  dear  to 
French  mourners;  and  with  these  oppor 
tune  mementoes  Mr.  Liegeay  roofed  him 
self  in,  lying  wedged  in  his  narrow  hiding- 
place  from  three  in  the  afternoon  till  night, 
and  listening  to  the  voices  of  the  soldiers 
who  were  hunting  for  him  among  the 
grave-stones.  Luckily  it  was  their  last  day 


102  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

at  Gerbeviller,  and  the  German  retreat 
saved  his  life. 

Even  in  Gerbeviller  we  saw  no  worse 
scene  of  destruction  than  the  particular 
spot  in  which  the  ex-mayor  stood  while 
he  told  his  story.  He  looked  about  him  at 
the  heaps  of  blackened  brick  and  con 
torted  iron.  "This  was  my  dining-room," 
he  said.  "There  was  some  good  old  panel 
ling  on  the  walls,  and  some  fine  prints 
that  had  been  a  wedding-present  to  my 
grand-father."  He  led  us  into  another  black 
pit.  "This  was  our  sitting-room:  you  see 
what  a  view  we  had."  He  sighed,  and 
added  philosophically:  "I  suppose  we  were 
too  well  off.  I  even  had  an  electric  light 
out  there  on  the  terrace,  to  read  my  paper 
by  on  summer  evenings.  Yes,  we  were  too 
well  off.  .  ."  That  was  all. 

Meanwhile  all  the  town  had  been  red 
with  horror  —  flame  and  shot  and  tortures 
unnameable;  and  at  the  other  end  of  the 
long  street,  a  woman,  a  Sister  of  Charity, 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    103 

had  held  her  own  like  Sceur  Gabrielle  at 
Clermont-en-Argonne,  gathering  her  flock  of 
old  men  and  children  about  her  and  inter 
posing  her  short  stout  figure  between  them 
and  the  fury  of  the  Germans.  We  found  her 
in  her  Hospice,  a  ruddy,  indomitable  woman 
who  related  with  a  quiet  indignation  more 
thrilling  than  invective  the  hideous  details 
of  the  bloody  three  days;  but  that  already 
belongs  to  the  past,  and  at  present  she  is 
much  more  concerned  with  the  task  of 
clothing  and  feeding  Gerbeviller.  For  two 
thirds  of  the  population  have  already 
"come  home'*  —  that  is  what  they  call 
the  return  to  this  desert !  "You  see,"  Sceur 
Julie  explained,  "there  are  the  crops  to 
sow,  the  gardens  to  tend.  They  had  to 
come  back.  The  government  is  building 
wooden  shelters  for  them;  and  people  will 
surely  send  us  beds  and  linen."  (Of  course 
they  would,  one  felt  as  one  listened !) 
"Heavy  boots,  too  —  boots  for  field-labour 
ers.  We  want  them  for  women  as  well  as 


104  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

men  —  like  these."  Sceur  Julie,  smiling, 
turned  up  a  hob-nailed  sole.  "I  have  di 
rected  all  the  work  on  our  Hospice  farm 
myself.  All  the  women  are  working  in  the 
fields  —  we  must  take  the  place  of  the 
men."  And  I  seemed  to  see  my  pink  peo 
nies  flowering  in  the  very  prints  of  her 
sturdy  boots ! 

May  14th. 

Nancy,  the  most  beautiful  town  in 
France,  has  never  been  as  beautiful  as 
now.  Coming  back  to  it  last  evening  from 
a  round  of  ruins  one  felt  as  if  the  humbler 
Sisters  sacrificed  to  spare  it  were  pleading 
with  one  not  to  forget  them  in  the  contem 
plation  of  its  dearly-bought  perfection. 

The  last  time  I  looked  out  on  the  great 
architectural  setting  of  the  Place  Stanislas 
was  on  a  hot  July  evening,  the  evening  of 
the  National  Fete.  The  square  and  the 
avenues  leading  to  it  swarmed  with  peo 
ple,  and  as  darkness  fell  the  balanced  lines 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    105 

of  arches  and  palaces  sprang  out  in  many 
coloured  light.  Garlands  of  lamps  looped 
the  arcades  leading  into  the  Place  de  la 
Carriere,  peacock-coloured  fires  flared  from 
the  Arch  of  Triumph,  long  curves  of  radi 
ance  beat  like  wings  over  the  thickets  of 
the  park,  the  sculptures  of  the  fountains, 
the  brown-and-gold  foliation  of  Jean  Da- 
mour's  great  gates;  and  under  this  roofing 
of  light  was  the  murmur  of  a  happy  crowd 
carelessly  celebrating  the  tradition  of  half- 
forgotten  victories. 

Now,  at  sunset,  all  life  ceases  in  Nancy 
and  veil  after  veil  of  silence  comes  down 
on  the  deserted  Place  and  its  empty  per 
spectives.  Last  night  by  nine  the  few  lin 
gering  lights  in  the  streets  had  been  put 
out,  every  window  was  blind,  and  the 
moonless  night  lay  over  the  city  like  a 
canopy  of  velvet.  Then,  from  some  remote 
point,  the  arc  of  a  search-light  swept  the 
sky,  laid  a  fugitive  pallor  on  darkened 
palace-fronts,  a  gleam  of  gold  on  invisible 


106  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

gates,  trembled  across  the  black  vault  and 
vanished,  leaving  it  still  blacker.  When  we 
came  out  of  the  darkened  restaurant  on 
the  corner  of  the  square,  and  the  iron 
curtain  of  the  entrance  had  been  hastily 
dropped  on  us,  we  stood  in  such  complete 
night  that  it  took  a  waiter's  friendly  hand 
to  guide  us  to  the  curbstone.  Then,  as  we 
grew  used  to  the  darkness,  we  saw  it  lying 
still  more  densely  under  the  colonnade  of 
the  Place  de  la  Carriere  and  the  clipped 
trees  beyond.  The  ordered  masses  of  archi 
tecture  became  august,  the  spaces  between 
them  immense,  and  the  black  sky  faintly 
strewn  with  stars  seemed  to  overarch  an 
enchanted  city.  Not  a  footstep  sounded, 
not  a  leaf  rustled,  not  a  breath  of  air  drew 
under  the  arches.  And  suddenly,  through 
the  dumb  night,  the  sound  of  the  cannon 
began. 

May  14th. 

Luncheon  with  the  General  Staff  in  an 
old   bourgeois   house   of  a   little   town   as 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    107 

sleepy  as  "Cranford."  In  the  warm  walled 
gardens  everything  was  blooming  at  once: 
laburnums,  lilacs,  red  hawthorn,  Banksia 
roses  and  all  the  pleasant  border  plants 
that  go  with  box  and  lavender.  Never  be 
fore  did  the  flowers  answer  the  spring  roll- 
call  with  such  a  rush !  Upstairs,  in  the  Em 
pire  bedroom  which  the  General  has  turned 
into  his  study,  it  was  amusingly  incongru 
ous  to  see  the  sturdy  provincial  furniture 
littered  with  war-maps,  trench-plans,  aero 
plane  photographs  and  all  the  documenta 
tion  of  modern  war.  Through  the  windows 
bees  hummed,  the  garden  rustled,  and  one 
felt,  close  by,  behind  the  walls  of  other 
gardens,  the  untroubled  continuance  of  a 
placid  and  orderly  bourgeois  life. 

We  started  early  for  Mousson  on  the 
Moselle,  the  ruined  hill-fortress  that  gives 
its  name  to  the  better-known  town  at  its 
foot.  Our  road  ran  below  the  long  range 
of  the  "Grand  Couronne,"  the  line  of  hills 
curving  southeast  from  Pont-a-Mousson 


108  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

to  St.  Nicolas  du  Port.  All  through  this 
pleasant  broken  country  the  battle  shook 
and  swayed  last  autumn;  but  few  signs  of 
those  days  are  left  except  the  wooden  crosses 
in  the  fields.  No  troops  are  visible,  and  the 
pictures  of  war  that  made  the  Argonne  so 
tragic  last  March  are  replaced  by  peace 
ful  rustic  scenes.  On  the  way  to  Mousson 
the  road  is  overhung  by  an  Italian-looking 
village  clustered  about  a  hill-top.  It  marks 
the  exact  spot  at  which,  last  August,  the 
German  invasion  was  finally  checked  and 
flung  back;  and  the  Muse  of  History  points 
out  that  on  this  very  hill  has  long  stood  a 
memorial  shaft  inscribed:  Here,  in  the  year 
362,  Jovinus  defeated  the  Teutonic  hordes. 

A  little  way  up  the  ascent  to  Mousson 
we  left  the  motor  behind  a  bit  of  rising 
ground.  The  road  is  raked  by  the  German 
lines,  and  stray  pedestrians  (unless  in  a 
group)  are  less  liable  than  a  motor  to  have 
a  shell  spent  on  them.  We  climbed  under  a 
driving  grey  sky  which  swept  gusts  of  rain 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE   VOSGES    109 

across  our  road.  In  the  lee  of  the  castle 
we  stopped  to  look  down  at  the  valley  of 
the  Moselle,  the  slate  roofs  of  Pont-a- 
Mousson  and  the  broken  bridge  which  once 
linked  together  the  two  sides  of  the  town. 
Nothing  but  the  wreck  of  the  bridge 
showed  that  we  were  on  the  edge  of  war. 
The  wind  was  too  high  for  firing,  and  we 
saw  no  reason  for  believing  that  the  wood 
just  behind  the  Hospice  roof  at  our  feet 
was  seamed  with  German  trenches  and 
bristling  with  guns,  or  that  from  every 
slope  across  the  valley  the  eye  of  the  can 
non  sleeplessly  glared.  But  there  the  Ger 
mans  were,  drawing  an  iron  ring  about 
three  sides  of  the  watch-tower;  and  as  one 
peered  through  an  embrasure  of  the  ancient 
walls  one  gradually  found  one's  self  re 
living  the  sensations  of  the  little  medi 
aeval  burgh  as  it  looked  out  on  some  earlier 
circle  of  besiegers.  The  longer  one  looked, 
the  more  oppressive  and  menacing  the  in 
visibility  of  the  foe  became.  "There  they 


110  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

are  —  and  there  —  and  there"  We  strained 
our  eyes  obediently,  but  saw  only  calm 
hillsides,  dozing  farms.  It  was  as  if  the 
earth  itself  were  the  enemy,  as  if  the  hordes 
of  evil  were  in  the  clods  and  grass-blades. 
Only  one  conical  hill  close  by  showed  an 
odd  artificial  patterning,  like  the  work  of 
huge  ants  who  had  scarred  it  with  criss 
cross  ridges.  We  were  told  that  these  were 
French  trenches,  but  they  looked  much 
more  like  the  harmless  traces  of  a  prehis 
toric  camp. 

Suddenly  an  officer,  pointing  to  the  west 
of  the  trenched  hill  said:  "Do  you  see  that 
farm?"  It  lay  just  below,  near  the  river, 
and  so  close  that  good  eyes  could  easily 
have  discerned  people  or  animals  in  the 
farm-yard,  if  there  had  been  any;  but  the 
whole  place  seemed  to  be  sleeping  the 
sleep  of  bucolic  peace.  " They  are  there" 
the  officer  said;  and  the  innocent  vignette 
framed  by  my  field-glass  suddenly  glared 
back  at  me  like  a  human  mask  of  hate. 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES   111 

The  loudest  cannonade  had  not  made 
"them"  seem  as  real  as  that ! .  .  . 

At  this  point  the  military  lines  and  the 
old  political  frontier  everywhere  overlap, 
and  in  a  cleft  of  the  wooded  hills  that  con 
ceal  the  German  batteries  we  saw  a  dark 
grey  blur  on  the  grey  horizon.  It  was 
Metz,  the  Promised  City,  lying  there  with 
its  fair  steeples  and  towers,  like  the  mystic 
banner  that  Constantine  saw  upon  the 
sky.  .  . 

Through  wet  vineyards  and  orchards 
we  scrambled  down  the  hill  to  the  river 
and  entered  Pont-a-Mousson.  It  was  by 
mere  meteorological  good  luck  that  we  got 
there,  for  if  the  winds  had  been  asleep  the 
guns  would  have  been  awake,  and  when 
they  wake  poor  Pont-a-Mousson  is  not  at 
home  to  visitors.  One  understood  why  as 
one  stood  in  the  riverside  garden  of  the 
great  Premonstratensian  Monastery  which 
is  now  the  hospital  and  the  general  asylum 
of  the  town.  Between  the  clipped  limes  and 


112  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

formal  borders  the  German  shells  had 
scooped  out  three  or  four  "dreadful  hol 
lows,"  in  one  of  which,  only  last  week,  a 
little  girl  found  her  death;  and  the  fagade 
of  the  building  is  pock-marked  by  shot 
and  disfigured  with  gaping  holes.  Yet  in 
this  precarious  shelter  Sister  Theresia,  of 
the  same  indomitable  breed  as  the  Sisters 
of  Clermont  and  Gerbeviller,  has  gathered 
a  miscellaneous  flock  of  soldiers  wounded 
in  the  trenches,  civilians  shattered  by  the 
bombardment,  eclopes,  old  women  and 
children:  all  the  human  wreckage  of  this 
storm-beaten  point  of  the  front.  Sister 
Theresia  seems  in  no  wise  disconcerted  by 
the  fact  that  the  shells  continually  play 
over  her  roof.  The  building  is  immense  and 
spreading,  and  when  one  wing  is  damaged 
she  picks  up  her  proteges  and  trots  them 
off,  bed  and  baggage,  to  another.  "  Je  pro- 
mene  Tries  malades"  she  said  calmly,  as  if 
boasting  of  the  varied  accommodation  of 
an  ultra-modern  hospital,  as  she  led  us 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES   113 

through  vaulted  and  stuccoed  galleries 
where  caryatid-saints  look  down  in  plaster 
pomp  on  the  rows  of  brown-blanketed 
pallets  and  the  long  tables  at  which  hag 
gard  eclopes  were  enjoying  their  evening 

souPv 

May  15th. 

I  have  seen  the  happiest  being  on  earth: 
a  man  who  has  found  his  job. 

This  afternoon  we  motored  southwest 
of  Nancy  to  a  little  place  called  Menil-sur- 
Belvitte.  The  name  is  not  yet  intimately 
known  to  history,  but  there  are  reasons 
why  it  deserves  to  be,  and  in  one  man's 
mind  it  already  is.  Menil-sur-Belvitte  is 
a  village  on  the  edge  of  the  Vosges.  It  is 
badly  battered,  for  awful  fighting  took 
place  there  in  the  first  month  of  the  war. 
The  houses  lie  in  a  hollow,  and  just  be 
yond  it  the  ground  rises  and  spreads  into 
a  plateau  waving  with  wheat  and  backed 
by  wooded  slopes  —  the  ideal  "battle- 


114  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

ground"  of  the  history -books.  And  here 
a  real  above-ground  battle  of  the  old  ob 
solete  kind  took  place,  and  the  French, 
driving  the  Germans  back  victoriously, 
fell  by  thousands  in  the  trampled  wheat. 

The  church  of  Menil  is  a  ruin,  but  the 
parsonage  still  stands  —  a  plain  little  house 
at  the  end  of  the  street;  and  here  the  cure 
received  us,  and  led  us  into  a  room  which 
he  has  turned  into  a  chapel.  The  chapel 
is  also  a  war  museum,  and  everything  in  it 
has  something  to  do  with  the  battle  that 
took  place  among  the  wheat-fields.  The 
candelabra  on  the  altar  are  made  of  "Sev 
enty-five"  shells,  the  Virgin's  halo  is  com 
posed  of  radiating  bayonets,  the  walls  are 
intricately  adorned  wTith  German  trophies 
and  French  relics,  and  on  the  ceiling  the 
cure  has  had  painted  a  kind  of  zodiacal 
chart  of  the  whole  region,  in  which  Menil- 
sur-Belvitte's  handful  of  houses  figures  as 
the  central  orb  of  the  system,  and  Verdun, 
Nancy,  Metz,  and  Belfort  as  its  humble 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    115 

satellites.  But  the  chapel-museum  is  only 
a  surplus  expression  of  the  cure's  impas 
sioned  dedication  to  the  dead.  His  real 
work  has  been  done  on  the  battle-field, 
where  row  after  row  of  graves,  marked  and 
listed  as  soon  as  the  struggle  was  over, 
have  been  fenced  about,  symmetrically 
disposed,  planted  with  flowers  and  young 
firs,  and  marked  by  the  names  and  death- 
dates  of  the  fallen.  As  he  led  us  from  one 
of  these  enclosures  to  another  his  face  was 
lit  with  the  flame  of  a  gratified  vocation. 
This  particular  man  was  made  to  do  this 
particular  thing:  he  is  a  born  collector, 
classifier,  and  hero-worshipper.  In  the  hall 
of  the  "presbytere"  hangs  a  case  of  care 
fully-mounted  butterflies,  the  result,  no 
doubt,  of  an  earlier  passion  for  collecting. 
His  "specimens"  have  changed,  that  is  all: 
he  has  passed  from  butterflies  to  men, 
from  the  actual  to  the  visionary  Psyche. 

On  the  way  to  Menil  we  stopped  at  the 
village  of  Crevic.  The  Germans  were  there 


116  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

in  August,  but  the  place  is  untouched  — 
except  for  one  house.  That  house,  a  large 
one,  standing  in  a  park  at  one  end  of  the 
village,  was  the  birth-place  and  home  of 
General  Lyautey,  one  of  France's  best  sol 
diers,  and  Germany's  worst  enemy  in 
Africa.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
last  August  General  Lyautey,  by  his 
promptness  and  audacity,  saved  Morocco 
for  France.  The  Germans  know  it,  and 
hate  him;  and  as  soon  as  the  first  soldiers 
reached  Crevic  —  so  obscure  and  imper 
ceptible  a  spot  that  even  German  omni 
science  might  have  missed  it  —  the  officer 
in  command  asked  for  General  Lyautey's 
house,  went  straight  to  it,  had  all  the 
papers,  portraits,  furniture  and  family 
relics  piled  in  a  bonfire  in  the  court,  and 
then  burnt  down  the  house.  As  we  sat 
in  the  neglected  park  with  the  plaintive 
ruin  before  us  we  heard  from  the  gardener 
this  typical  tale  of  German  thoroughness 
and  German  chivalry.  It  is  corroborated 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    11T 

by   the   fact   that   not   another   house   in 
Crevic  was  destroyed. 

May  16th. 

About  two  miles  from  the  German  fron 
tier  (frontier  just  here  as  well  as  front) 
an  isolated  hill  rises  out  of  the  Lorraine 
meadows.  East  of  it,  a  ribbon  of  river 
winds  among  poplars,  and  that  ribbon  is 
the  boundary  between  Empire  and  Re 
public.  On  such  a  clear  day  as  this  the 
view  from  the  hill  is  extraordinarily  in 
teresting.  From  its  grassy  top  a  little 
aeroplane  cannon  stares  to  heaven,  watch 
ing  the  east  for  the  danger  speck;  and  the 
circumference  of  the  hill  is  furrowed  by  a 
deep  trench  —  a  "bowel,"  rather  —  wind 
ing  invisibly  from  one  subterranean  ob 
servation  post  to  another.  In  each  of  these 
earthly  warrens  (ingeniously  wattled,  roofed 

and  iron-sheeted)  stand  two  or  three  artil- 
I 

lery  officers  with  keen  quiet  faces,  direct 
ing    by    telephone    the    fire    of    batteries 


118  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

nestling  somewhere  in  the  woods  four  or 
five  miles  away.  Interesting  as  the  place 
was,  the  men  who  lived  there  interested 
me  far  more.  They  obviously  belonged  to 
different  classes,  and  had  received  a  dif 
ferent  social  education;  but  their  mental 
and  moral  fraternity  was  complete.  They 
were  all  fairly  young,  and  their  faces  had 
the  look  that  war  has  given  to  French 
faces:  a  look  of  sharpened  intelligence, 
strengthened  will  and  sobered  judgment, 
as  if  every  faculty,  trebly  vivified,  were  so 
bent  on  the  one  end  that  personal  prob 
lems  had  been  pushed  back  to  the  vanish 
ing  point  of  the  great  perspective. 

From  this  vigilant  height  —  one  of  the 
intentest  eyes  open  on  the  frontier  —  we 
went  a  short  distance  down  the  hillside  to 
a  village  out  of  range  of  the  guns,  where 
the  commanding  officer  gave  us  tea  in  a 
charming  old  house  with  a  terraced  gar 
den  full  of  flowers  and  puppies.  Below  the 
terrace,  lost  Lorraine  stretched  away  to  her 


IN  LORRAINE  AND   THE  VOSGES    119 

blue  heights,  a  vision  of  summer  peace: 
and  just  above  us  the  unsleeping  hill  kept 
watch,  its  signal-wires  trembling  night  and 
day.  It  was  one  of  the  intervals  of  rest 
and  sweetness  when  the  whole  horrible 
black  business  seems  to  press  most  intoler 
ably  on  the  nerves. 

Below  the  village  the  road  wound  down 
to  a  forest  that  had  formed  a  dark  blur 
in  our  bird's-eye  view  of  the  plain.  We 
passed  into  the  forest  and  halted  on  the 
edge  of  a  colony  of  queer  exotic  huts.  On 
all  sides  they  peeped  through  the  branches, 
themselves  so  branched  and  sodded  and 
leafy  that  they  seemed  like  some  transi 
tion  form  between  tree  and  house.  We  were 
in  one  of  the  so-called  "villages  negres" 
of  the  second-line  trenches,  the  jolly  little 
settlements  to  which  the  troops  retire 
after  doing  their  shift  under  fire.  This  par 
ticular  colony  has  been  developed  to  an 
extreme  degree  of  comfort  and  safety. 
The  houses  are  partly  underground,  con- 


120  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

nected  by  deep  winding  "bowels"  over 
which  light  rustic  bridges  have  been  thrown, 
and  so  profoundly  roofed  with  sods  that 
as  much  of  them  as  shows  above  ground 
is  shell-proof.  Yet  they  are  real  houses, 
with  real  doors  and  windows  under  their 
grass-eaves,  real  furniture  inside,  and  real 
beds  of  daisies  and  pansies  at  their  doors. 
In  the  Colonel's  bungalow  a  big  bunch  of 
spring  flowers  bloomed  on  the  table,  and 
everywhere  we  saw  the  same  neatness  and 
order,  the  same  amused  pride  in  the  look 
of  things.  The  men  were  dining  at  long 
trestle-tables  under  the  trees;  tired,  un 
shaven  men  in  shabby  uniforms  of  all  cuts 
and  almost  every  colour.  They  were  off 
duty,  relaxed,  in  a  good  humour;  but  every 
face  had  the  look  of  the  faces  watching  011 
the  hill-top.  Wherever  I  go  among  these 
men  of  the  front  I  have  the  same  impres 
sion:  the  impression  that  the  absorbing  un 
divided  thought  of  the  Defence  of  France 
lives  in  the  heart  and  brain  of  each  soldier 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    121 

as  intensely  as  in  the  heart  and  brain  of 
their  chief. 

We  walked  a  dozen  yards  down  the  road 
and  came  to  the  edge  of  the  forest.  A  wat 
tled  palisade  bounded  it,  and  through  a 
gap  in  the  palisade  we  looked  out  across 
a  field  to  the  roofs  of  a  quiet  village  a  mile 
away.  I  went  out  a  few  steps  into  the  field 
and  was  abruptly  pulled  back.  "Take  care 
—  those  are  the  trenches!"  What  looked 
like  a  ridge  thrown  up  by  a  plough  was 
the  enemy's  line;  and  in  the  quiet  village 
French  cannon  watched.  Suddenly,  as  we 
stood  there,  they  woke,  and  at  the  same 
moment  we  heard  the  unmistakable  Gr-r-r 
of  an  aeroplane  and  saw  a  Bird  of  Evil 
high  up  against  the  blue.  Snap,  snap,  snap 
barked  the  mitrailleuse  on  the  hill,  the 
soldiers  jumped  from  their  wine  and 
strained  their  eyes  through  the  trees,  and 
the  Taube,  finding  itself  the  centre  of  so 
much  attention,  turned  grey  tail  and 
swished  away  to  the  concealing  clouds. 


122  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

May  17th. 

Today  we  started  with  an  intenser  sense 
of  adventure.  Hitherto  we  had  always 
been  told  beforehand  where  we  were  going 
and  how  much  we  were  to  be  allowed  to 
see;  but  now  we  were  being  launched  into 
the  unknown.  Beyond  a  certain  point  all 
was  conjecture  —  we  knew  only  that  what 
happened  after  that  would  depend  on  the 
good-will  of  a  Colonel  of  Chasseurs-a-pied 
whom  we  were  to  go  a  long  way  to  find, 
up  into  the  folds  of  the  mountains  on  our 
southeast  horizon. 

We  picked  up  a  staff-officer  at  Head 
quarters  and  flew  on  to  a  battered  town 
on  the  edge  of  the  hills.  From  there  we 
wound  up  through  a  narrowing  valley, 
under  wooded  cliffs,  to  a  little  settlement 
where  the  Colonel  of  the  Brigade  was  to 
be  found.  There  was  a  short  conference 
between  the  Colonel  and  our  staff-officer, 
and  then  we  annexed  a  Captain  of  Chas 
seurs  and  spun  away  again.  Our  road  lay 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    123 

through  a  town  so  exposed  that  our  com 
panion  from  Head-quarters  suggested  the 
advisability  of  avoiding  it;  but  our  guide 
hadn't  the  heart  to  inflict  such  a  disap 
pointment  on  his  new  acquaintances.  "Oh, 
we  won't  stop  the  motor  —  we  '11  just 
dash  through,"  he  said  indulgently;  and 
in  the  excess  of  his  indulgence  he  even 
permitted  us  to  dash  slowly. 

Oh,  that  poor  town  —  when  we  reached 
it,  along  a  road  ploughed  with  fresh  obus- 
holes,  I  didn't  want  to  stop  the  motor;  I 
wanted  to  hurry  on  and  blot  the  picture 
from  my  memory!  It  was  doubly  sad  to 
look  at  because  of  the  fact  that  it  wasn't 
quite  dead;  faint  spasms  of  life  still  quiv 
ered  through  it.  A  few  children  played  in 
the  ravaged  streets;  a  few  pale  mothers 
watched  them  from  cellar  doorways.  "They 
oughtn't  to  be  here,"  our  guide  explained; 
"but  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  begged  so 
hard  to  stay  that  the  General  gave  them 
leave.  The  officer  in  command  has  an  eye 


124  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

on  them,  and  whenever  he  gives  the  signal 
they  dive  down  into  their  burrows.  He  says 
they  are  perfectly  obedient.  It  was  he  who 
asked  that  they  might  stay.  .  ." 

Up  and  up  into  the  hills.  The  vision  of 
human  pain  and  ruin  was  lost  in  beauty. 
We  were  among  the  firs,  and  the  air  was 
full  of  balm.  The  mossy  banks  gave  out 
a  scent  of  rain,  and  little  water-falls  from 
the  heights  set  the  branches  trembling 
over  secret  pools.  At  each  turn  of  the  road, 
forest,  and  always  more  forest,  climbing 
with  us  as  we  climbed,  and  dropping  away 
from  us  to  narrow  valleys  that  converged 
on  slate-blue  distances.  At  one  of  these 
turns  we  overtook  a  company  of  soldiers, 
spade  on  shoulder  and  bags  of  tools  across 
their  backs  —  "trench-workers'*  swinging 
up  to  the  heights  to  which  we  were  bound. 
Life  must  be  a  better  thing  in  this  crystal 
air  than  in  the  mud-welter  of  the  Argonne 
and  the  fogs  of  the  North;  and  these  men's 
faces  were  fresh  with  wind  and  weather. 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    125 

Higher  still  .  .  .  and  presently  a  halt  on 
a  ridge,  in  another  "black  village,"  this 
time  almost  a  town !  The  soldiers  gathered 
round  us  as  the  motor  stopped  —  throngs 
of  chasseurs-a-pied  in  faded,  trench-stained 
uniforms  —  for  few  visitors  climb  to  this 
point,  and  their  pleasure  at  the  sight  of 
new  faces  was  presently  expressed  in  a 
large  "Vive  VAmerique  !"  scrawled  on  the 
door  of  the  car.  L'Amerique  was  glad  and 
proud  to  be  there,  and  instantly  conscious 
of  breathing  an  air  saturated  with  courage 
and  the  dogged  determination  to  endure. 
The  men  were  all  reservists:  that  is  to  say, 
mostly  married,  and  all  beyond  the  first 
fighting  age.  For  many  months  there  has 
not  been  much  active  work  along  this 
front,  no  great  adventure  to  rouse  the 
blood  and  wing  the  imagination:  it  has  just 
been  month  after  month  of  monotonous 
watching  and  holding  on.  And  the  soldiers' 
faces  showed  it:  there  was  no  light  of  heady 
enterprise  in  their  eyes,  but  the  look  of 


126  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

men  who  knew  their  job,  had  thought  it 
over,  and  were  there  to  hold  their  bit  of 
France  till  the  day  of  victory  or  extermina 
tion. 

Meanwhile,  they  had  made  the  best  of 
the  situation  and  turned  their  quarters  into 
a  forest  colony  that  would  enchant  any 
normal  boy.  Their  village  architecture  was 
more  elaborate  than  any  we  had  yet  seen. 
In  the  Colonel's  "dugout"  a  long  table 
decked  with  lilacs  and  tulips  was  spread 
for  tea.  In  other  cheery  catacombs  we 
found  neat  rows  of  bunks,  mess-tables,  siz 
zling  sauce-pans  over  kitchen-fires.  Every 
where  were  endless  ingenuities  in  the  way 
of  camp-furniture  and  household  decora 
tion.  Farther  down  the  road  a  path  be 
tween  fir-boughs  led  to  a  hidden  hospital, 
a  marvel  of  underground  compactness. 
While  we  chatted  with  the  surgeon  a  sol 
dier  came  in  from  the  trenches:  an  elderly, 
bearded  man,  with  a  good  average  civilian 
face  —  the  kind  that  one  runs  against  by 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES   127 

hundreds  in  any  French  crowd.  He  had  a 
scalp-wound  which  had  just  been  dressed, 
and  was  very  pale.  The  Colonel  stopped  to 
ask  a  few  questions,  and  then,  turning  to 
him,  said:  "Feeling  rather  better  now?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"Good.  In  a  day  or  two  you  '11  be  think 
ing  about  going  back  to  the  trenches,  eh?" 

"I'm  going  now,  sir"  It  was  said  quite 
simply,  and  received  in  the  same  way. 
"Oh,  all  right,"  the  Colonel  merely  re 
joined;  but  he  laid  his  hand  on  the  man's 
shoulder  as  we  went  out. 

Our  next  visit  was  to  a  sod-thatched 
hut,  "At  the  sign  of  the  Ambulant  Arti 
sans,"  where  two  or  three  soldiers  were 
modelling  and  chiselling  all  kinds  of  trin 
kets  from  the  aluminium  of  enemy  shells. 
One  of  the  ambulant  artisans  was  just  fin 
ishing  a  ring  with  beautifully  modelled 
fauns'  heads,  another  offered  me  a  "Pick- 
elhaube"  small  enough  for  Mustard-seed's 
wear,  but  complete  in  every  detail,  and 


128  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

inlaid  with  the  bronze  eagle  from  an  Im 
perial  pfennig.  There  are  many  such  ring- 
smiths  among  the  privates  at  the  front, 
and  the  severe,  somewhat  archaic  design 
of  their  rings  is  a  proof  of  the  sureness  of 
French  taste;  but  the  two  we  visited  hap 
pened  to  be  Paris  jewellers,  for  whom 
"artisan"  was  really  too  modest  a  pseu 
donym.  Officers  and  men  were  evidently 
proud  of  their  work,  and  as  they  stood 
hammering  away  in  their  cramped  smithy, 
a  red  gleam  lighting  up  the  intentness  of 
their  faces,  they  seemed  to  be  beating  out 
the  cheerful  rhythm  of  "I  too  will  some 
thing  make,  and  joy  in  the  making."  .  . 

Up  the  hillside,  in  deeper  shadow,  was 
another  little  structure;  a  wooden  shed 
with  an  open  gable  sheltering  an  altar 
with  candles  and  flowers.  Here  mass  is 
said  by  one  of  the  conscript  priests  of  the 
regiment,  while  his  congregation  kneel  be 
tween  the  fir-trunks,  giving  life  to  the  old 
metaphor  of  the  cathedral-forest.  Near  by 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    129 

was  the  grave-yard,  where  day  by  day 
these  quiet  elderly  men  lay  their  com 
rades,  the  peres  de  famille  who  don't  go 
back.  The  care  of  this  woodland  cemetery 
is  left  entirely  to  the  soldiers,  and  they 
have  spent  treasures  of  piety  on  the  in 
scriptions  and  decorations  of  the  graves. 
Fresh  flowers  are  brought  up  from  the 
valleys  to  cover  them,  and  when  some 
favourite  comrade  goes,  the  men  scorn 
ing  ephemeral  tributes,  club  together  to 
buy  a  monstrous  indestructible  wreath  with 
emblazoned  streamers.  It  was  near  the  end 
of  the  afternoon,  and  many  soldiers  were 
strolling  along  the  paths  between  the 
graves.  "It 's  their  favourite  walk  at  this 
hour,"  the  Colonel  said.  He  stopped  to 
look  down  on  a  grave  smothered  in  beady 
tokens,  the  grave  of  the  last  pal  to  fall. 
"He  was  mentioned  in  the  Order  of  the 
Day,"  the  Colonel  explained;  and  the 
group  of  soldiers  standing  near  looked  at 
us  proudly,  as  if  sharing  their  comrade's 


130  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

honour,  and  wanting  to  be  sure  that  we 
understood  the  reason  of  their  pride.  .  . 

"'And  now."  said  our  Captain  of  Chas 
seurs,  "that  you  Ve  seen  the  second-line 
trenches,  what  do  you  say  to  taking  a  look 
at  the  first?" 

We  followed  him  to  a  point  higher  up 
the  hill,  where  we  plunged  into  a  deep 
ditch  of  red  earth  —  the  "bowel''  leading 
to  the  first  lines.  It  climbed  still  higher, 
under  the  wet  firs,  and  then,  turning, 
dipped  over  the  edge  and  began  to  wind 
in  sharp  loops  down  the  other  side  of  the 
ridge.  Down  we  scrambled,  single  file,  our 
chins  on  a  level  with  the  top  of  the  pas 
sage,  the  close  green  covert  above  us. 
The  "bowel"  went  twisting  down  more 
and  more  sharply  into  a  deep  ra vine;  and 
presently,  at  a  bend,  we  came  to  a  fir- 
thatched  outlook,  where  a  soldier  stood 
with  his  back  to  us,  his  eye  glued  to  a 
peep-hole  in  the  wattled  walL  Another 
turn,  and  another  outlook;  but  here  it  was 


IN  LORRAINE  AND   THE   VOSGE5    131 

the  iron-rimmed  eye  of  the  mitrailleuse 
that  stared  across  the  ravine.  By  this  time 
we  were  within  a  hundred  yards  or  so  of 
the  German  lines,  hidden,  like  ours,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  narrowing  hollow; 
and  as  we  stole  down  and  down,  the  hush 
and  secrecy  of  the  scene,  and  the  sense  of 
that  imminent  lurking  hatred  only  a  few 
branch-lengths  away,  seemed  to  fill  the 
silence  with  mysterious  pulsations.  Sud 
denly  a  sharp  noise  broke  on  them:  the  rap 
of  a  rifle-shot  against  a  tree-trunk  a  few 
yards  ahead. 

"Ah,  the  sharp-shooter,"  said  our  guide. 
"  Xo  more  talking,  please  —  he  's  over  there, 
in  a  tree  somewhere,  and  whenever  he  hears 
voices  he  fires.  Some  day  we  shall  spot 
his  tree." 

We  went  on  in  silence  to  a  point  where 
a  few  soldiers  were  sitting  on  a  ledge  of 
rock  in  a  widening  of  the  ''bowel/'  They 
looked  as  quiet  as  if  they  had  been  waiting 
for  their  bocks  before  a  Boulevard  cafe. 


132  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

"Not  beyond,  please,"  said  the  officer, 
holding  me  back;  and  I  stopped. 

Here  we  were,  then,  actually  and  liter 
ally  in  the  first  lines !  The  knowledge  made 
one's  heart  tick  a  little;  but,  except  for 
another  shot  or  two  from  our  arboreal 
listener,  and  the  motionless  intentness  of 
the  soldier's  back  at  the  peep-hole,  there 
was  nothing  to  show  that  we  were  not  a 
dozen  miles  away. 

Perhaps  the  thought  occurred  to  our 
Captain  of  Chasseurs;  for  just  as  I  was 
turning  back  he  said  with  his  friendliest 
twinkle:  "Do  you  want  awfully  to  go  a 
little  farther?  Well,  then,  come  on." 

We  went  past  the  soldiers  sitting  on  the 
ledge  and  stole  down  and  down,  to  where 
the  trees  ended  at  the  bottom  of  the  ra 
vine.  The  sharp-shooter  had  stopped  firing, 
and  nothing  disturbed  the  leafy  silence  but 
an  intermittent  drip  of  rain.  We  were  at 
the  end  of  the  burrow,  and  the  Captain 
signed  to  me  that  I  might  take  a  cautious 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    133 

peep  round  its  corner.  I  looked  out  and 
saw  a  strip  of  intensely  green  meadow  just 
under  me,  and  a  wooded  cliff  rising  abruptly 
on  its  other  side.  That  was  all.  The  wooded 
cliff  swarmed  with  "them,"  and  a  few 
steps  would  have  carried  us  across  the  in 
terval;  yet  all  about  us  was  silence,  and 
the  peace  of  the  forest.  Again,  for  a  min 
ute,  I  had  the  sense  of  an  all-pervading, 
invisible  power  of  evil,  a  saturation  of  the 
whole  landscape  with  some  hidden  vitriol 
of  hate.  Then  the  reaction  of  unbelief  set 
in,  and  I  felt  myself  in  a  harmless  ordi 
nary  glen,  like  a  million  others  on  an  un 
troubled  earth.  We  turned  and  began  to 
climb  again,  loop  by  loop,  up  the  "bowel" 
—  we  passed  the  lolling  soldiers,  the  silent 
mitrailleuse,  we  came  again  to  the  watcher 
at  his  peep-hole.  He  heard  us,  let  the 
officer  pass,  and  turned  his  head  with  a 
little  sign  of  understanding. 

"Do  you  want  to  look  down?" 

He  moved  a  step  away  from  his  window. 


134  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

The  look-out  projected  over  the  ravine, 
raking  its  depths;  and  here,  with  one's  eye 
to  the  leaf -lashed  hole,  one  saw  at  last  .  .  . 
saw,  at  the  bottom  of  the  harmless  glen, 
hah*  way  between  cliff  and  cliff,  a  grey 
uniform  huddled  in  a  dead  heap.  "He  's 
been  there  for  days:  they  can't  fetch  him 
away,"  said  the  watcher,  regluing  his  eye 
to  the  hole;  and  it  was  almost  a  relief  to 
find  it  was  after  all  a  tangible  enemy 
hidden  over  there  across  the  meadow.  .  . 

The  sun  had  set  when  we  got  back  to 
our  starting-point  in  the  underground  vil 
lage.  The  chasseurs-a-pied  were  lounging 
along  the  roadside  and  standing  in  gossip 
ing  groups  about  the  motor.  It  was  long 
since  they  had  seen  faces  from  the  other 
life,  the  life  they  had  left  nearly  a  year 
earlier  and  had  not  been  allowed  to  go 
back  to  for  a  day;  and  under  all  their  jokes 
and  good-humour  their  farewell  had  a 
tinge  of  wistfulness.  But  one  felt  that  this 


IN  LORRAINE  AND  THE  VOSGES    135 

fugitive  reminder  of  a  world  they  had  put 
behind  them  would  pass  like  a  dream,  and 
their  minds  revert  without  effort  to  the  one 
reality:  the  business  of  holding  their  bit  of 
France. 

It  is  hard  to  say  why  this  sense  of  the 
French  soldier's  single-mindedness  is  so 
strong  in  all  who  have  had  even  a  glimpse 
of  the  front;  perhaps  it  is  gathered  less 
from  what  the  men  say  than  from  the  look 
in  their  eyes.  Even  while  they  are  accept 
ing  cigarettes  and  exchanging  trench-jokes, 
the  look  is  there;  and  when  one  comes  on 
them  unaware  it  is  there  also.  In  the  dusk 
of  the  forest  that  look  followed  us  down 
the  mountain;  and  as  we  skirted  the  edge 
of  the  ravine  between  the  armies,  we  felt 
that  on  the  far  side  of  that  dividing  line 
were  the  men  who  had  made  the  war,  and 
on  the  near  side  the  men  who  had  been 
made  by  it. 


IN  THE  NORTH 


IN  THE  NORTH 

June  19th,  1915. 

the  way  from  Doullens  to  Mon- 
treuil-sur-Mer,  on  a  shining  summer 
afternoon.  A  road  between  dusty  hedges, 
choked,  literally  strangled,  by  a  torrent  of 
westward-streaming  troops  of  all  arms. 
Every  few  minutes  there  would  come  a 
break  in  the  flow,  and  our  motor  would 
wriggle  through,  advance  a  few  yards  and  be 
stopped  again  by  a  widening  of  the  tor 
rent  that  jammed  us  into  the  ditch  and 
splashed  a  dazzle  of  dust  into  our  eyes. 
The  dust  was  stifling  —  but  through  it,  what 
a  sight ! 

Standing  up  in  the  car  and  looking  back, 
we  watched  the  river  of  war  wind  toward 
us.  Cavalry,  artillery,  lancers,  infantry, 
sappers  and  miners,  trench-diggers,  road- 
makers,  stretcher-bearers,  they  swept  on  as 

139 


140  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

smoothly  as  if  in  holiday  order.  Through 
the  dust,  the  sun  picked  out  the  flash  of 
lances  and  the  gloss  of  chargers'  flanks, 
flushed  rows  and  rows  of  determined  faces, 
found  the  least  touch  of  gold  on  faded 
uniforms,  silvered  the  sad  grey  of  mitra 
illeuses  and  munition  waggons.  Close  as 
the  men  were,  they  seemed  allegorically 
splendid:  as  if,  under  the  arch  of  the 
sunset,  we  had  been  watching  the  whole 
French  army  ride  straight  into  glory.  .  . 

Finally  we  left  the  last  detachment  be 
hind,  and  had  the  country  to  ourselves. 
The  disfigurement  of  war  has  not  touched 
the  fields  of  Artois.  The  thatched  farm 
houses  dozed  in  gardens  full  of  roses  and 
hollyhocks,  and  the  hedges  above  the  duck- 
ponds  were  weighed  down  with  layers  of 
elder-blossom.  On  all  sides  wheat-fields 
skirted  with  woodland  went  billowing  away 
under  the  breezy  light  that  seemed  to  carry 
a  breath  of  the  Atlantic  on  its  beams.  The 
road  ran  up  and  down  as  if  our  motor  were 


IN  THE  NORTH  141 

a  ship  on  a  deep-sea  swell;  and  such  a  sense 
of  space  and  light  was  in  the  distances, 
such  a  veil  of  beauty  over  the  whole 
world,  that  the  vision  of  that  army  on  the 
move  grew  more  and  more  fabulous  and 
epic. 

The  sun  had  set  and  the  sea-twilight 
was  rolling  in  when  we  dipped  down  from 
the  town  of  Montreuil  to  the  valley  De- 
low,  where  the  towers  of  an  ancient  abbey- 
church  rise  above  terraced  orchards.  The 
gates  at  the  end  of  the  avenue  were  thrown 
open,  and  the  motor  drove  into  a  monas 
tery  court  full  of  box  and  roses.  Everything 
was  sweet  and  secluded  in  this  mediaeval 
place;  and  from  the  shadow  of  cloisters 
and  arched  passages  groups  of  nuns  flut 
tered  out,  nuns  all  black  or  all  white,  gliding, 
peering  and  standing  at  gaze.  It  was  as  if  we 
had  plunged  back  into  a  century  to  which 
motors  were  unknown  and  our  car  had  been 
some  monster  cast  up  from  a  Barbary  ship 
wreck;  and  the  startled  attitudes  of  these 


142  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

holy  women  did  credit  to  their  sense  of  the 
picturesque;  for  the  Abbey  of  Neuville  is 
now  a  great  Belgian  hospital,  and  such 
monsters  must  frequently  intrude  on  its 
seclusion.  .  . 

Sunset,  and  summer  dusk,  and  the  moon. 
Under  the  monastery  windows  a  walled 
garden  with  stone  pavilions  at  the  angles 
and  the  drip  of  a  fountain.  Below  it,  tiers 
of  orchard-terraces  fading  into  a  great  moon- 
confused  plain  that  might  be  either  fields  or 
sea.  .  . 

June  20th. 

Today  our  way  ran  northeast,  through 
a  landscape  so  English  that  there  was  no 
incongruity  in  the  sprinkling  of  khaki 
along  the  road.  Even  the  villages  look  Eng 
lish:  the  same  plum-red  brick  of  tidy  self- 
respecting  houses,  neat,  demure  and  freshly 
painted,  the  gardens  all  bursting  with 
flowers,  the  landscape  hedgerowed  and  wil- 
lowed  and  fed  with  water-courses,  the  peo- 


IN  THE  NORTH  143 

pie's  faces  square  and  pink  and  honest,  and 
the  signs  over  the  shops  in  a  language  half 
way  between  English  and  German.  Only 
the  architecture  of  the  towns  is  French,  of 
a  reserved  and  robust  northern  type,  but 
unmistakably  in  the  same  great  tradition. 
War  still  seemed  so  far  off  that  one  had 
time  for  these  digressions  as  the  motor 
flew  on  over  the  undulating  miles.  But 
presently  we  came  on  an  aviation  camp 
spreading  its  sheds  over  a  wide  plateau. 
Here  the  khaki  throng  was  thicker  and 
the  familiar  military  stir  enlivened  the 
landscape.  A  few  miles  farther,  and  we 
found  ourselves  in  what  was  seemingly  a 
big  English  town  oddly  grouped  about  a 
nucleus  of  French  churches.  This  was  St. 
Omer,  grey,  spacious,  coldly  clean  in  its 
Sunday  emptiness.  At  the  street  crossings 
English  sentries  stood  mechanically  direct 
ing  the  absent  traffic  with  gestures  familiar 
to  Piccadilly;  and  the  signs  of  the  British 
Red  Cross  and  St.  John's  Ambulance  hung 


144  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

on  club-like  fagades  that  might  almost  have 
claimed  a  home  in  Pall  Mall. 

The  Englishness  of  things  was  empha 
sized,  as  we  passed  out  through  the  suburbs, 
by  the  look  of  the  crowd  on  the  canal 
bridges  and  along  the  roads.  Every  nation 
has  its  own  way  of  loitering,  and  there  is 
nothing  so  unlike  the  French  way  as  the 
English  Even  if  all  these  tall  youths  had 
not  been  in  khaki,  and  the  girls  with  them 
so  pink  and  countrified,  one  would  instantly 
have  recognized  the  passive  northern  way  of 
letting  a  holiday  soak  in  instead  of  squeez 
ing  out  its  juices  with  feverish  fingers. 

When  we  turned  westward  from  St. 
Omer,  across  the  same  pastures  and  water 
courses,  we  were  faced  by  two  hills  stand 
ing  up  abruptly  out  of  the  plain;  and  on 
the  top  of  one  rose  the  walls  and  towers 
of  a  compact  little  mediaeval  town.  As  we 
took  the  windings  that  led  up  to  it  a  sense  of 
Italy  began  to  penetrate  the  persistent 
impression  of  being  somewhere  near  the 


IN  THE  NORTH  145 

English  Channel.  The  town  we  were  ap 
proaching  might  have  been  a  queer  dream- 
blend  of  Winchelsea  and  San  Gimignano; 
but  when  we  entered  the  gates  of  Cassel  we 
were  in  a  place  so  intensely  itself  that  all 
analogies  dropped  out  of  mind. 

It  was  not  surprising  to  learn  from  the 
guide-book  that  Cassel  has  the  most  ex 
tensive  view  of  any  town  in  Europe:  one 
felt  at  once  that  it  differed  in  all  sorts  of 
marked  and  self-assertive  ways  from  every 
other  town,  and  would  be  almost  sure  to 
have  the  best  things  going  in  every  line. 
And  the  line  of  an  illimitable  horizon  is 
exactly  the  best  to  set  off  its  own  quaint 
compactness. 

We  found  our  hotel  in  the  most  perfect 
of  little  market  squares,  with  a  Renais 
sance  town-hall  on  one  side,  and  on  the 
other  a  miniature  Spanish  palace  with  a 
front  of  rosy  brick  adorned  by  grey  carv 
ings.  The  square  was  crowded  with  Eng 
lish  army  motors  and  beautiful  prancing 


146  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

chargers;  and  the  restaurant  of  the  inn 
(which  has  the  luck  to  face  the  pink  and 
grey  palace)  swarmed  with  khaki  tea- 
drinkers  turning  indifferent  shoulders  to 
the  widest  view  in  Europe.  It  is  one  of 
the  most  detestable  things  about  war  that 
everything  connected  with  it,  except  the 
death  and  ruin  that  result,  is  such  a 
heightening  of  life,  so  visually  stimulating 
and  absorbing.  "It  was  gay  and  terrible," 
is  the  phrase  forever  recurring  in  "War 
and  Peace";  and  the  gaiety  of  war  was 
everywhere  in  Cassel,  transforming  the 
lifeless  little  town  into  a  romantic  stage- 
setting  full  of  the  flash  of  arms  and  the 
virile  animation  of  young  faces. 

From  the  park  on  top  of  the  hill  we 
looked  down  on  another  picture.  All  about 
us  was  the  plain,  its  distant  rim  merged 
in  northern  sea-mist;  and  through  the 
mist,  in  the  glitter  of  the  afternoon  sun, 
far-off  towns  and  shadowy  towers  lay 
steeped,  as  it  seemed,  in  summer  quiet. 


IN  THE  NORTH  147 

For  a  moment,  while  we  looked,  the  vision 
of  war  shrivelled  up  like  a  painted  veil; 
then  we  caught  the  names  pronounced  by 
a  group  of  English  soldiers  leaning  over 
the  parapet  at  our  side.  "That's  Dun- 
kerque'* —  one  of  them  pointed  it  out 
with  his  pipe  —  "and  there's  Poperinghe, 
just  under  us;  that's  Furnes  beyond,  and 
Ypres  and  Dixmude,  and  Nieuport.  .  ." 
And  at  the  mention  of  those  names  the 
scene  grew  dark  again,  and  we  felt  the 
passing  of  the  Angel  to  whom  was  given 
the  Key  of  the  Bottomless  Pit. 

That  night  we  went  up  once  more  to 
the  rock  of  Cassel.  The  moon  was  full, 
and  as  civilians  are  not  allowed  out  alone 
after  dark  a  staff-officer  went  with  us  to 
show  us  the  view  from  the  roof  of  the  dis 
used  Casino  on  top  of  the  rock.  It  was 
the  queerest  of  sensations  to  push  open  a 
glazed  door  and  find  ourselves  in  a  spec 
tral  painted  room  with  soldiers  dozing  in 
the  moonlight  on  polished  floors,  their 


148  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

kits  stacked  on  the  gaming  tables.  We 
passed  through  a  big  vestibule  among  more 
soldiers  lounging  in  the  half-light,  and  up  a 
long  staircase  to  the  roof  where  a  watcher 
challenged  us  and  then  let  us  go  to  the 
edge  of  the  parapet.  Directly  below  lay  the 
unlit  mass  of  the  town.  To  the  northwest 
a  single  sharp  hill,  the  "Mont  des  Cats," 
stood  out  against  the  sky;  the  rest  of 
the  horizon  was  unbroken,  and  floating  in 
misty  moonlight.  The  outline  of  the  ruined 
towns  had  vanished  and  peace  seemed  to 
have  won  back  the  world.  But  as  we  stood 
there  a  red  flash  started  out  of  the  mist 
far  off  to  the  northwest;  then  another  and 
another  flickered  up  at  different  points  of 
the  long  curve.  "Luminous  bombs  thrown 
up  along  the  lines,"  our  guide  explained; 
and  just  then,  at  still  another  point  a 
white  light  opened  like  a  tropical  flower, 
spread  to  full  bloom  and  drew  itself  back 
into  the  night.  "A  flare,"  we  were  told; 
and  another  white  flower  bloomed  out  far- 


IN  THE  NORTH  149 

ther  down.  Below  us,  the  roofs  of  Cassel 
slept  their  provincial  sleep,  the  moonlight 
picking  out  every  leaf  in  the  gardens;  while 
beyond,  those  infernal  flowers  continued  to 
open  and  shut  along  the  curve  of  death. 

June  21st. 

On  the  road  from  Cassel  to  Poperinghe. 
Heat,  dust,  crowds,  confusion,  all  the  sor 
did  shabby  rear-view  of  war.  The  road 
running  across  the  plain  between  white- 
powdered  hedges  was  ploughed  up  by 
numberless  motor-vans,  supply -waggons 
and  Red  Cross  ambulances.  Labouring 
through  between  them  came  detachments 
of  British  artillery,  clattering  gun-car 
riages,  straight  young  figures  on  glossy 
horses,  long  Phidian  lines  of  youths  so 
ingenuously  fair  that  one  wondered  how 
they  could  have  looked  on  the  Medusa 
face  of  war  and  lived.  Men  and  beasts,  in 
spite  of  the  dust,  were  as  fresh  and  sleek  as 
if  they  had  come  from  a  bath;  and  every- 


150  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

where  along  the  wayside  were  improvised 
camps,  with  tents  made  of  waggon-covers, 
where  the  ceaseless  indomitable  work  of 
cleaning  was  being  carried  out  in  all  its 
searching  details.  Shirts  were  drying  on 
elder-bushes,  kettles  boiling  over  gypsy 
fires,  men  shaving,  blacking  their  boots, 
cleaning  their  guns,  rubbing  down  their 
horses,  greasing  their  saddles,  polishing 
their  stirrups  and  bits:  on  all  sides  a 
general  cheery  struggle  against  the  pre 
vailing  dust,  discomfort  and  disorder.  Here 
and  there  a  young  soldier  leaned  against  a 
garden  paling  to  talk  to  a  girl  among  the 
hollyhocks,  or  an  older  soldier  initiated 
a  group  of  children  into  some  mystery 
of  military  housekeeping;  and  everywhere 
were  the  same  signs  of  friendly  inarticulate 
understanding  with  the  owners  of  the  fields 
and  gardens. 

From  the  thronged  high-road  we  passed 
into  the  emptiness  of  deserted  Poperinghe, 
and  out  again  on  the  way  to  Ypres.  Beyond 


IN  THE  NORTH  151 

the  flats  and  wind-mills  to  our  left  were  the 
invisible  German  lines,  and  the  staff-officer 
who  was  with  us  leaned  forward  to  caution 
our  chauffeur:  "No  tooting  between  here 
and  Ypres."  There  was  still  a  good  deal 
of  movement  on  the  road,  though  it  was 
less  crowded  with  troops  than  near  Pope- 
ringhe;  but  as  we  passed  through  the  last 
village  and  approached  the  low  line  of 
houses  ahead,  the  silence  and  emptiness 
widened  about  us.  That  low  line  was  Ypres ; 
every  monument  that  marked  it,  that  gave 
it  an  individual  outline,  is  gone.  It  is  a 
town  without  a  profile. 

The  motor  slipped  through  a  suburb  of 
small  brick  houses  and  stopped  under  cover 
of  some  slightly  taller  buildings.  Another 
military  motor  waited  there,  the  chauffeur 
relic-hunting  in  the  gutted  houses. 

We  got  out  and  walked  toward  the 
centre  of  the  Cloth  Market.  We  had  seen 
evacuated  towns  —  Verdun,  Badonviller, 

f 

Raon-1'Etape  —  but  we  had  seen  no  empti- 


152  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

ness  like  this.  Not  a  human  being  was  in 
the  streets.  Endless  lines  of  houses  looked 
down  on  us  from  vacant  windows.  Our 
footsteps  echoed  like  the  tramp  of  a  crowd, 
our  lowered  voices  seemed  to  shout.  In 
one  street  we  came  on  three  English  sol 
diers  who  were  carrying  a  piano  out  of  a 
house  and  lifting  it  onto  a  hand-cart. 
They  stopped  to  stare  at  us,  and  we  stared 
back.  It  seemed  an  age  since  we  had  seen 
a  living  being !  One  of  the  soldiers  scram 
bled  into  the  cart  and  tapped  out  a  tune 
on  the  cracked  key -board,  and  we  all 
laughed  with  relief  at  the  foolish  noise.  .  . 
Then  we  walked  on  and  were  alone  again. 

We  had  seen  other  ruined  towns,  but 
none  like  this.  The  towns  of  Lorraine  were 
blown  up,  burnt  down,  deliberately  erased 
from  the  earth.  At  worst  they  are  like 
stone-yards,  at  best  like  Pompeii.  But 
Ypres  has  been  bombarded  to  death,  and 
the  outer  walls  of  its  houses  are  still  stand 
ing,  so  that  it  presents  the  distant  sem- 


IN  THE  NORTH  153 

blance  of  a  living  city,  while  near  by  it 
is  seen  to  be  a  disembowelled  corpse.  Ev 
ery  window-pane  is  smashed,  nearly  every 
building  unroofed,  and  some  house-fronts 
are  sliced  clean  off,  with  the  different  sto 
ries  exposed,  as  if  for  the  stage-setting  of  a 
farce.  In  these  exposed  interiors  the  poor 
little  household  gods  shiver  and  blink  like 
owls  surprised  in  a  hollow  tree.  A  hundred 
signs  of  intimate  and  humble  tastes,  of 
humdrum  pursuits,  of  family  association, 
cling  to  the  unmasked  walls.  Whiskered 
photographs  fade  on  morning-glory  wall 
papers,  plaster  saints  pine  under  glass  bells, 
antimacassars  droop  from  plush  sofas,  yel 
lowing  diplomas  display  their  seals  on  office 
walls.  It  was  all  so  still  and  familiar  that 
it  seemed  as  if  the  people  for  whom  these 
things  had  a  meaning  might  at  any  moment 
come  back  and  take  up  their  daily  business. 
And  then  —  crash !  the  guns  began,  slam 
ming  out  volley  after  volley  all  along  the 
English  lines,  and  the  poor  frail  web  of 


154  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

things  that  had  made  up  the  lives  of  a  van 
ished  city-full  hung  dangling  before  us  in 
that  deathly  blast. 

We  had  just  reached  the  square  before 
the  Cathedral  when  the  cannonade  began, 
and  its  roar  seemed  to  build  a  roof  of 
iron  over  the  glorious  ruins  of  Ypres.  The 
singular  distinction  of  the  city  is  that  it  is 
destroyed  but  not  abased.  The  walls  of 
the  Cathedral,  the  long  bulk  of  the  Cloth 
Market,  still  lift  themselves  above  the 
market  place  with  a  majesty  that  seems 
to  silence  compassion.  The  sight  of  those 
fagades,  so  proud  in  death,  recalled  a 
phrase  used  soon  after  the  fall  of  Liege  by 
Belgium's  Foreign  Minister  —  "La  Belgique 
ne  regrette  rien" — which  ought  some  day  to 
serve  as  the  motto  of  the  renovated  city. 

We  were  turning  to  go  when  we  heard 
a  whirr  overhead,  followed  by  a  volley  of 
mitrailleuse.  High  up  in  the  blue,  over  the 
centre  of  the  dead  city,  flew  a  German  aero 
plane;  and  all  about  it  hundreds  of  white 


IN  THE  NORTH  155 

shrapnel  tufts  burst  out  in  the  summer  sky 
like  the  miraculous  snow-fall  of  Italian  le 
gend.  Up  and  up  they  flew,  on  the  trail  of 
the  Taube,  and  on  flew  the  Taube,  faster 
still,  till  quarry  and  pack  were  lost  in  mist, 
and  the  barking  of  the  mitrailleuse  died  out. 
So  we  left  Ypres  to  the  death-silence  in 
which  we  had  found  her. 

The  afternoon  carried  us  back  to  Pope- 
ringhe,  where  I  was  bound  on  a  quest 
for  lace-cushions  of  the  special  kind  re 
quired  by  our  Flemish  refugees.  The  model 
is  unobtainable  in  France,  and  I  had  been 
told  —  with  few  and  vague  indications  — 
that  I  might  find  the  cushions  in  a  certain 
convent  of  the  city.  But  in  which? 

Poperinghe,  though  little  injured,  is  al 
most  empty.  In  its  tidy  desolation  it 
looks  like  a  town  on  which  a  wicked  en 
chanter  has  laid  a  spell.  We  roamed  from 
quarter  to  quarter,  hunting  for  some  one 
to  show  us  the  way  to  the  convent  I  was 
looking  for,  till  at  last  a  passer-by  led  us 


156  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

to  a  door  which  seemed  the  right  one. 
At  our  knock  the  bars  were  drawn  and 
a  cloistered  face  looked  out.  No,  there 
were  no  cushions  there;  and  the  nun  had 
never  heard  of  the  order  we  named.  But 
there  were  the  Penitents,  the  Benedic 
tines  —  we  might  try.  Our  guide  offered  to 
show  us  the  way  and  we  went  on.  From 
one  or  two  windows,  wondering  heads 
looked  out  and  vanished;  but  the  streets 
were  lifeless.  At  last  we  came  to  a  con 
vent  where  there  were  no  nuns  left,  but 
where,  the  caretaker  told  us,  there  were 
cushions — a  great  many.  He  led  us  through 
pale  blue  passages,  up  cold  stairs,  through 
rooms  that  smelt  of  linen  and  lavender. 
We  passed  a  chapel  with  plaster  saints  in 
white  niches  above  paper  flowers.  Every 
thing  was  cold  and  bare  and  blank:  like 
a  mind  from  which  memory  has  gone. 
We  came  to  a  class  room  with  lines  of 
empty  benches  facing  a  blue-mantled  Vir 
gin;  and  here,  on  the  floor,  lay  rows  and 


IN  THE  NORTH  157 

rows  of  lace-cushions.  On  each  a  bit  of 
lace  had  been  begun — and  there  they  had 
been  dropped  when  nuns  and  pupils  fled. 
They  had  not  been  left  in  disorder:  the 
rows  had  been  laid  out  evenly,  a  handker 
chief  thrown  over  each  cushion.  And  that 
orderly  arrest  of  life  seemed  sadder  than 
any  scene  of  disarray.  It  symbolized  the 
senseless  paralysis  of  a  whole  nation's  ac 
tivities.  Here  were  a  houseful  of  women 
and  children,  yesterday  engaged  in  a  use 
ful  task  and  now  aimlessly  astray  over  the 
earth.  And  in  hundreds  of  such  houses, 
in  dozens,  in  hundreds  of  open  towns, 
the  hand  of  time  had  been  stopped,  the 
heart  of  life  had  ceased  to  beat,  all  the 
currents  of  hope  and  happiness  and  in 
dustry  been  choked — not  that  some  great 
military  end  might  be  gained,  or  the 
length  of  the  war  curtailed,  but  that, 
wherever  the  shadow  of  Germany  falls,  all 
things  should  wither  at  the  root. 

The  same  sight  met  us  everywhere  that 


158  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

afternoon.  Over  Furnes  and  Bergues,  and 
all  the  little  intermediate  villages,  the 
evil  shadow  lay.  Germany  had  willed  that 
these  places  should  die,  and  wherever  her 
bombs  could  not  reach  her  malediction 
had  carried.  Only  Biblical  lamentation 
can  convey  a  vision  of  this  life-drained 
land.  "Your  country  is  desolate;  your 
cities  are  burned  with  fire;  your  land, 
strangers  devour  it  in  your  presence,  and 
it  is  desolate,  as  overthrown  by  strangers." 
Late  in  the  afternoon  we  came  to  Dun- 
kerque,  lying  peacefully  between  its  har 
bour  and  canals.  The  bombardment  of  the 
previous  month  had  emptied  it,  and  though 
no  signs  of  damage  were  visible  the  same 
spellbound  air  lay  over  everything.  As  we 
sat  alone  at  tea  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel  on 
the  Place  Jean  Bart,  and  looked  out  on 
the  silent  square  and  its  lifeless  shops  and 
cafes,  some  one  suggested  that  the  hotel 
would  be  a  convenient  centre  for  the  ex 
cursions  we  had  planned,  and  we  decided 


IN  THE  NORTH  159 

to  return  there  the  next  evening.  Then  we 
motored  back  to  Cassel. 

June  22nd. 

My  first  waking  thought  was :  "  How  time 
flies !  It  must  be  the  Fourteenth  of  July !" 
I  knew  it  could  not  be  the  Fourth  of  that 
specially  commemorative  month,  because 
I  was  just  awake  enough  to  be  sure  I  was 
not  in  America;  and  the  only  other  event 
to  justify  such  a  terrific  clatter  was  the 
French  national  anniversary.  I  sat  up  and 
listened  to  the  popping  of  guns  till  a  com- 
pleter  sense  of  reality  stole  over  me,  and  I 
realized  that  I  was  in  the  inn  of  the  Wild 
Man  at  Cassel,  and  that  it  was  not  the 
fourteenth  of  July  but  the  twenty-second 
of  June. 

Then,  what  —  ?  A  Taube,  of  course ! 
And  all  the  guns  in  the  place  were  crack 
ing  at  it !  By  the  time  this  mental  process 
was  complete,  I  had  scrambled  up  and  hur 
ried  downstairs  and,  unbolting  the  heavy 


160  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

doors,  had  rushed  out  into  the  square.  It 
was  about  four  in  the  morning,  the  heaven- 
liest  moment  of  a  summer  dawn,  and  in 
spite  of  the  tumult  Cassel  still  apparently 
slept.  Only  a  few  soldiers  stood  in  the 
square,  looking  up  at  a  drift  of  white  cloud 
behind  which  —  they  averred  —  a  Taube 
had  just  slipped  out  of  sight.  Cassel  was 
evidently  used  to  Taubes,  and  I  had  the 
sense  of  having  overdone  my  excitement 
and  not  being  exactly  in  tune;  so  after  gaz 
ing  a  moment  at  the  white  cloud  I  slunk 
back  into  the  hotel,  barred  the  door  and 
mounted  to  my  room.  At  a  window  on  the 
stairs  I  paused  to  look  out  over  the  sloping 
roofs  of  the  town,  the  gardens,  the  plain; 
and  suddenly  there  was  another  crash  and 
a  drift  of  white  smoke  blew  up  from  the 
fruit-trees  just  under  the  window.  It  was 
a  last  shot  at  the  fugitive,  from  a  gun 
hidden  in  one  of  those  quiet  provincial 
gardens  between  the  houses;  and  its  se 
cret  presence  there  was  more  startling  than 


IN  THE  NORTH  161 

all  the   clatter  of  mitrailleuses  from   the 
rock. 

Silence  and  sleep  came  down  again  on 
Cassel;  but  an  hour  or  two  later  the  hush 
was  broken  by  a  roar  like  the  last  trump. 
This  time  it  was  no  question  of  mitrai 
lleuses.  The  Wild  Man  rocked  on  its  base, 
and  every  pane  in  my  windows  beat  a 
tattoo.  What  was  that  incredible  unim- 
agined  sound?  Why,  it  could  be  nothing, 
of  course,  but  the  voice  of  the  big  siege- 
gun  of  Dixmude !  Five  times,  while  I  was 
dressing,  the  thunder  shook  my  windows, 
and  the  air  was  filled  with  a  noise  that 
may  be  compared  —  if  the  human  imagina 
tion  can  stand  the  strain  —  to  the  simul 
taneous  closing  of  all  the  iron  shop-shutters 
in  the  world.  The  odd  part  was  that,  as  far 
as  the  Wild  Man  and  its  inhabitants  were 
concerned,  no  visible  effects  resulted,  and 
dressing,  packing  and  coffee-drinking  went 
on  comfortably  in  the  strange  parentheses 
between  the  roars. 


162  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

We  set  off  early  for  a  neighbouring 
Head-quarters,  and  it  was  not  till  we 
turned  out  of  the  gates  of  Cassel  that  we 
came  on  signs  of  the  bombardment:  the 
smashing  of  a  gas-house  and  the  convert 
ing  of  a  cabbage-field  into  a  crater  which, 
for  some  time  to  come,  will  spare  photog 
raphers  the  trouble  of  climbing  Vesuvius. 
There  was  a  certain  consolation  in  the  dis 
crepancy  between  the  noise  and  the  damage 
done. 

At  Head-quarters  we  learned  more  of 
the  morning's  incidents.  Dunkerque,  it 
appeared,  had  first  been  visited  by  the 
Taube  which  afterward  came  to  take  the 
range  of  Cassel;  and  the  big  gun  of  Dix- 
mude  had  then  turned  all  its  fury  on  the 
French  sea-port.  The  bombardment  of 
Dunkuerque  was  still  going  on;  and  we 
were  asked,  and  in  fact  bidden,  to  give  up 
our  plan  of  going  there  for  the  night. 

After  luncheon  we  turned  north,  toward 
the  dunes.  The  villages  we  drove  through 


IN  THE  NORTH  163 

were  all  evacuated,  some  quite  lifeless, 
others  occupied  by  troops.  Presently  we 
came  to  a  group  of  military  motors  drawn 
up  by  the  roadside,  and  a  field  black  with 
wheeling  troops.  "Admiral  Ronarc'h!"  our 
companion  from  Head-quarters  exclaimed; 
and  we  understood  that  we  had  had  the 
good  luck  to  come  on  the  hero  of  Dixmude 
in  the  act  of  reviewing  the  marine  fusiliers 
and  territorials  whose  magnificent  defense 
of  last  October  gave  that  much-besieged 
town  another  lease  of  glory. 

We  stopped  the  motor  and  climbed  to  a 
ridge  above  the  field.  A  high  wind  was 
blowing,  bringing  with  it  the  booming  of 
the  guns  along  the  front.  A  sun  half-veiled 
in  sand-dust  shone  on  pale  meadows,  sandy 
flats,  grey  wind-mills.  The  scene  was  de 
serted,  except  for  the  handful  of  troops 
deploying  before  the  officers  on  the  edge 
of  the  field.  Admiral  Ronarc'h,  white- 
gloved  and  in  full-dress  uniform,  stood  a 
little  in  advance,  a  young  naval  officer  at 


164  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

his  side.  He  had  just  been  distributing 
decorations  to  his  fusiliers  and  territorials, 
and  they  were  marching  past  him,  flags 
flying  and  bugles  playing.  Every  one  of 
those  men  had  a  record  of  heroism,  and 
every  face  in  those  ranks  had  looked  on 
horrors  unnameable.  They  had  lost  Dix- 
mude  —  for  a  while  —  but  they  had  gained 
great  glory,  and  the  inspiration  of  their 
epic  resistance  had  come  from  the  quiet 
officer  who  stood  there,  straight  and  grave, 
in  his  white  gloves  and  gala  uniform. 

One  must  have  been  in  the  North  to 
know  something  of  the  tie  that  exists,  in 
this  region  of  bitter  and  continuous  fight 
ing,  between  officers  and  soldiers.  The 
feeling  of  the  chiefs  is  almost  one  of  ven 
eration  for  their  men;  that  of  the  soldiers, 
a  kind  of  half-humorous  tenderness  for 
the  officers  who  have  faced  such  odds  with 
them.  This  mutual  regard  reveals  itself 
in  a  hundred  undefinable  ways;  but  its 
fullest  expression  is  in  the  tone  with  which 


IN  THE  NORTH  165 

the  commanding  officers  speak  the  two 
words  oftenest  on  their  lips:  "My  men." 

The  little  review  over,  we  went  on  to 
Admiral  Ronarc'h's  quarters  in  the  dunes, 
and  thence,  after  a  brief  visit,  to  another 
brigade  Head-quarters.  We  were  in  a  region 
of  sandy  hillocks  feathered  by  tamarisk, 
and  interspersed  with  poplar  groves  slant 
ing  like  wheat  in  the  wind.  Between  these 
meagre  thickets  the  roofs  of  seaside  bun 
galows  showed  above  the  dunes;  and  be 
fore  one  of  these  we  stopped,  and  were 
led  into  a  sitting-room  full  of  maps  and 
aeroplane  photographs.  One  of  the  officers 
of  the  brigade  telephoned  to  ask  if  the  way 
was  clear  to  Nieuport;  and  the  answer  was 
that  we  might  go  on. 

Our  road  ran  through  the  "Bois  Tri- 
angulaire,"  a  bit  of  woodland  exposed  to 
constant  shelling.  Half  the  poor  spindling 
trees  were  down,  and  patches  of  blackened 
undergrowth  and  ragged  hollows  marked 
the  path  of  the  shells.  If  the  trees  of  a 


166  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

cannonaded  wood  are  of  strong  inland 
growth  their  fallen  trunks  have  the  majesty 
of  a  ruined  temple;  but  there  was  some 
thing  humanly  pitiful  in  the  frail  trunks 
of  the  Bois  Triangulaire,  lying  there  like 
slaughtered  rows  of  immature  troops. 

A  few  miles  more  brought  us  to  Nieu- 
port,  most  lamentable  of  the  victim  towns. 
It  is  not  empty  as  Ypres  is  empty:  troops 
are  quartered  in  the  cellars,  and  at  the 
approach  of  our  motor  knots  of  cheerful 
zouaves  came  swarming  out  of  the  ground 
like  ants.  But  Ypres  is  majestic  in  death, 
poor  Nieuport  gruesomely  comic.  About 
its  splendid  nucleus  of  mediaeval  architec 
ture  a  modern  town  had  grown  up;  and 
nothing  stranger  can  be  pictured  than  the 
contrast  between  the  streets  of  flimsy 
houses,  twisted  like  curl-papers,  and  the 
ruins  of  the  Gothic  Cathedral  and  the 
Cloth  Market.  It  is  like  passing  from  a 
smashed  toy  to  the  survival  of  a  prehistoric 
cataclysm. 


IN  THE  NORTH  167 

Modern  Nieuport  seems  to  have  died  in 
a  colic.  No  less  homely  image  expresses 
the  contractions  and  contortions  of  the 
houses  reaching  out  the  appeal  of  their 
desperate  chimney-pots  and  agonized  gir 
ders.  There  is  one  view  along  the  exterior 
of  the  town  like  nothing  else  on  the  war- 
front.  On  the  left,  a  line  of  palsied  houses 
leads  up  like  a  string  of  crutch-propped  beg 
gars  to  the  mighty  ruin  of  the  Templars' 
Tower;  on  the  right  the  flats  reach  away 
to  the  almost  imperceptible  humps  of 
masonry  that  were  once  the  villages  of  St. 
Georges,  Ramscappelle,  Pervyse.  And  over 
it  all  the  incessant  crash  of  the  guns 
stretches  a  sounding-board  of  steel. 

In  front  of  the  cathedral  a  German 
shell  has  dug  a  crater  thirty  feet  across, 
overhung  by  splintered  tree-trunks,  burnt 
shrubs,  vague  mounds  of  rubbish;  and  a 
few  steps  beyond  lies  the  peacefulest 
spot  in  Nieuport,  the  grave-yard  where 
the  zouaves  have  buried  their  comrades. 


168  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

The  dead  are  laid  in  rows  under  the  flank 
of  the  cathedral,  and  on  their  carefully 
set  grave-stones  have  been  placed  collec 
tions  of  pious  images  gathered  from  the 
ruined  houses.  Some  of  the  most  privileged 
are  guarded  by  colonies  of  plaster  saints 
and  Virgins  that  cover  the  whole  slab;  and 
over  the  handsomest  Virgins  and  the  most 
gaily  coloured  saints  the  soldiers  have 
placed  the  glass  bells  that  once  protected 
the  parlour  clocks  and  wedding-wreaths 
in  the  same  houses. 

From  sad  Nieuport  we  motored  on  to 
a  little  seaside  colony  where  gaiety  pre 
vails.  Here  the  big  hotels  and  the  ad 
joining  villas  along  the  beach  are  filled 
with  troops  just  back  from  the  trenches: 
it  is  one  of  the  "rest  cures"  of  the  front. 
When  we  drove  up,  the  regiment  "au 
repos"  was  assembled  in  the  wide  sandy 
space  between  the  principal  hotels,  and 
in  the  centre  of  the  jolly  crowd  the  band 
was  playing.  The  Colonel  and  his  officers 


IN  THE  NORTH  169 

stood  listening  to  the  music,  and  presently 
the  soldiers  broke  into  the  wild  "chan 
son  des  zouaves"  of  the  th  zouaves. 

It  was  the  strangest  of  sights  to  watch 
that  throng  of  dusky  merry  faces  under 
their  red  fezes  against  the  background 
of  sunless  northern  sea.  When  the  music 
was  over  some  one  with  a  kodak  sug 
gested  "a  group":  we  struck  a  collective 
attitude  on  one  of  the  hotel  terraces,  and 
just  as  the  camera  was  being  aimed  at  us 
the  Colonel  turned  and  drew  into  the 
foreground  a  little  grinning  pock-marked 
soldier.  "He's  just  been  decorated  —  he's 
got  to  be  in  the  group."  A  general  ex 
clamation  of  assent  from  the  other  officers, 
and  a  protest  from  the  hero:  "Me?  Why, 
my  ugly  mug  will  smash  the  plate!"  But 
it  didn't - 

Reluctantly  we  turned  from  this  in 
terval  in  the  day's  sad  round,  and  took 
the  road  to  La  Panne.  Dust,  dunes,  de 
serted  villages:  my  memory  keeps  no  more 


170  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

definite  vision  of  the  run.  But  at  sunset 
we  came  on  a  big  seaside  colony  stretched 
out  above  the  longest  beach  I  ever  saw: 
along  the  sea-front,  an  esplanade  bor 
dered  by  the  usual  foolish  villas,  and  be 
hind  it  a  single  street  filled  with  hotels 
and  shops.  All  the  life  of  the  desert  region 
we  had  traversed  seemed  to  have  taken 
refuge  at  La  Panne.  The  long  street  was 
swarming  with  throngs  of  dark-uniformed 
Belgian  soldiers,  every  shop  seemed  to  be 
doing  a  thriving  trade,  and  the  hotels 
looked  as  full  as  beehives. 

June  23rd  LA  PANNE. 
The  particular  hive  that  has  taken  us 
in  is  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  esplan 
ade,  where  asphalt  and  iron  railings  lapse 
abruptly  into  sand  and  sea-grass.  When 
I  looked  out  of  my  window  this  morning 
I  saw  only  the  endless  stretch  of  brown 
sand  against  the  grey  roll  of  the  Northern 
Ocean,  and,  on  a  crest  of  the  dunes,  the 


IN  THE  NORTH  171 

figure  of  a  solitary  sentinel.  But  presently 
there  was  a  sound  of  martial  music,  and 
long  lines  of  troops  came  marching  along 
the  esplanade  and  down  to  the  beach. 
The  sands  stretched  away  to  east  and  west, 
a  great  "field  of  Mars"  on  which  an  army 
could  have  manoeuvred;  and  the  morning 
exercises  of  cavalry  and  infantry  began. 
Against  the  brown  beach  the  regiments  in 
their  dark  uniforms  looked  as  black  as 
silhouettes;  and  the  cavalry  galloping  by 
in  single  file  suggested  a  black  frieze  of 
warriors  encircling  the  dun-coloured  flanks 
of  an  Etruscan  vase.  For  hours  these  long- 
drawn-out  movements  of  troops  went  on, 
to  the  wail  of  bugles,  and  under  the  eye 
of  the  lonely  sentinel  on  the  sand-crest; 
then  the  soldiers  poured  back  into  the 
town,  and  La  Panne  was  once  more  a  busy 
common-place  bain-de-mer.  The  common- 
placeness,  however,  was  only  on  the  sur 
face;  for  as  one  walked  along  the  esplanade 
one  discovered  that  the  town  had  become  a 


172  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

citadel,  and  that  all  the  doll's-house  villas 
with  their  silly  gables  and  sillier  names  — 
"Seaweed,"  "The  Sea-gull,"  "MonRepos," 
and  the  rest  —  were  really  a  continuous 
line  of  barracks  swarming  with  Belgian 
troops.  In  the  main  street  there  were  hun 
dreds  of  soldiers,  pottering  along  in  couples, 
chatting  in  groups,  romping  and  wrestling 
like  a  crowd  of  school-boys,  or  bargaining 
in  the  shops  for  shell-work  souvenirs  and 
sets  of  post-cards;  and  between  the  dark- 
green  and  crimson  uniforms  was  a  frequent 
sprinkling  of  khaki,  with  the  occasional 
pale  blue  of  a  French  officer's  tunic. 

Before  luncheon  we  motored  over  to 
Dunkerque.  The  road  runs  along  the  ca 
nal,  between  grass-flats  and  prosperous  vil 
lages.  No  signs  of  war  were  noticeable 
except  on  the  road,  which  was  crowded 
with  motor  vans,  ambulances  and  troops. 
The  walls  and  gates  of  Dunkerque  rose 
before  us  as  calm  and  undisturbed  as  when 
we  entered  the  town  the  day  before  yes- 


A  street  at  Nieuport. 


IN  THE  NORTH  173 

terday.  But  within  the  gates  we  were  in  a 
desert.  The  bombardment  had  ceased  the 
previous  evening,  but  a  death-hush  lay  on 
the  town,  Every  house  was  shuttered  and 
the  streets  were  empty.  We  drove  to  the 
Place  Jean  Bart,  where  two  days  ago  we 
sat  at  tea  in  the  hall  of  the  hotel.  Now  there 
was  not  a  whole  pane  of  glass  in  the  win 
dows  of  the  square,  the  doors  of  the  hotel 
were  closed,  and  every  now  and  then  some 
one  came  out  carrying  a  basketful  of  plas 
ter  from  fallen  ceilings.  The  whole  surface 
of  the  square  was  literally  paved  with  bits 
of  glass  from  the  hundreds  of  broken  win 
dows,  and  at  the  foot  of  David's  statue  of 
Jean  Bart,  just  where  our  motor  had  stood 
while  we  had  tea,  the  siege-gun  of  Dix- 
mude  had  scooped  out  a  hollow  as  big  as 
the  crater  at  Nieuport. 

Though  not  a  house  on  the  square  was 
touched,  the  scene  was  one  of  unmitigated 
desolation.  It  was  the  first  time  we  had 
seen  the  raw  wounds  of  a  bombardment, 


174  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

and  the  freshness  of  the  havoc  seemed  to 
accentuate  its  cruelty.  We  wandered  down 
the  street  behind  the  hotel  to  the  graceful 
Gothic  church  of  St.  Eloi,  of  which  one 
aisle  had  been  shattered;  then,  turning  an 
other  corner,  we  came  on  a  poor  bourgeois 
house  that  had  had  its  whole  front  torn 
away.  The  squalid  revelation  of  caved-in 
floors,  smashed  wardrobes,  dangling  bed 
steads,  heaped-up  blankets,  topsy-turvy 
chairs  and  stoves  and  wash-stands  was  far 
more  painful  than  the  sight  of  the  wounded 
church.  St.  Eloi  was  draped  in  the  dignity 
of  martyrdom,  but  the  poor  little  house  re 
minded  one  of  some  shy  humdrum  person 
suddenly  exposed  in  the  glare  of  a  great 
misfortune. 

A  few  people  stood  in  clusters  looking  up 
at  the  ruins,  or  strayed  aimlessly  about  the 
streets.  Not  a  loud  word  was  heard.  The 
air  seemed  heavy  with  the  suspended  breath 
of  a  great  city's  activities:  the  mournful 
hush  of  Dunkerque  was  even  more  oppres- 


IN  THE  NORTH  175 

sive  than  the  death-silence  of  Ypres.  But 
when  we  came  back  to  the  Place  Jean  Bart 
the  unbreakable  human  spirit  had  begun 
to  reassert  itself.  A  handful  of  children  were 
playing  in  the  bottom  of  the  crater,  col 
lecting  "specimens"  of  glass  and  splintered 
brick;  and  about  its  rim  the  market-people, 
quietly  and  as  a  matter  of  course,  were  set 
ting  up  their  wooden  stalls.  In  a  few  min 
utes  the  signs  of  German  havoc  would 
be  hidden  behind  stacks  of  crockery  and 
household  utensils,  and  some  of  the  pale 
women  we  had  left  in  mournful  contem 
plation  of  the  ruins  would  be  bargaining 
as  sharply  as  ever  for  a  sauce-pan  or  a 
butter-tub.  Not  once  but  a  hundred  times 
has  the  attitude  of  the  average  French 
civilian  near  the  front  reminded  me  of  the 
gallant  cry  of  Calanthea  in  The  Broken 
Heart:  "Let  me  die  smiling!"  I  should 
have  liked  to  stop  and  spend  all  I  had  in 
the  market  of  Dunkerque.  .  . 

All   the   afternoon   we   wandered   about 


176  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

La  Panne.  The  exercises  of  the  troops 
had  begun  again,  ~  and  the  deploying  of 
those  endless  black  lines  along  the  beach 
was  a  sight  of  the  strangest  beauty.  The 
sun  was  veiled,  and  heavy  surges  rolled  in 
under  a  northerly  gale.  Toward  evening 
the  sea  turned  to  cold  tints  of  jade  and 
pearl  and  tarnished  silver.  Far  down  the 
beach  a  mysterious  fleet  of  fishing  boats 
was  drawn  up  on  the  sand,  with  black 
sails  bellying  in  the  wind;  and  the  black 
riders  galloping  by  might  have  landed 
from  them,  and  been  riding  into  the  sun 
set  out  of  some  wild  northern  legend. 
Presently  a  knot  of  buglers  took  up  their 
stand  on  the  edge  of  the  sea,  facing  in 
ward,  their  feet  in  the  surf,  and  began  to 
play;  and  their  call  was  like  the  call  of 
Roland's  horn,  when  he  blew  it  down  the 
pass  against  the  heathen.  On  the  sand- 
crest  below  my  window  the  lonely  sentinel 
still  watched. 


IN  THE  NORTH  177 

June  24th. 

It  is  like  coming  down  from  the  moun 
tains  to  leave  the  front.  I  never  had  the 
feeling  more  strongly  than  when  we  passed 
out  of  Belgium  this  afternoon.  I  had  it 
most  strongly  as  we  drove  by  a  cluster  of 
villas  standing  apart  in  a  sterile  region  of 
sea-grass  and  sand.  In  one  of  those  villas 
for  nearly  a  year,  two  hearts  at  the  high 
est  pitch  of  human  constancy  have  held 
up  a  light  to  the  world.  It  is  impossible 
to  pass  that  house  without  a  sense  of  awe. 
Because  of  the  light  that  comes  from  it, 
dead  faiths  have  come  to  life,  weak  con 
victions  have  grown  strong,  fiery  impulses 
have  turned  to  long  endurance,  and  long 
endurance  has  kept  the  fire  of  impulse.  In 
the  harbour  of  New  York  there  is  a  pom 
pous  statue  of  a  goddess  with  a  torch, 
designated  as  "Liberty  enlightening  the 
World."  It  seems  as  though  the  title  on 
her  pedestal  might  well,  for  the  time,  be 


178  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

transferred  to  the  lintel  of  that  villa  in 
the  dunes. 

On  leaving  St.  Omer  we  took  a  short 
cut  southward  across  rolling  country.  It 
was  a  happy  accident  that  caused  us  to 
leave  the  main  road,  for  presently,  over  the 
crest  of  a  hill,  we  saw  surging  toward  us 
a  mighty  movement  of  British  and  Indian 
troops.  A  great  bath  of  silver  sunlight  lay 
on  the  wheat-fields,  the  clumps  of  woodland 
and  the  hilly  blue  horizon,  and  in  that 
slanting  radiance  the  cavalry  rode  toward 
us,  regiment  after  regiment  of  slim  turbaned 
Indians,  with  delicate  proud  faces  like 
the  faces  of  Princes  in  Persian  miniatures. 
Then  came  a  long  train  of  artillery;  splen 
did  horses,  clattering  gun-carriages,  clear- 
faced  English  youths  galloping  by  all 
aglow  in  the  sunset.  The  stream  of  them 
seemed  never-ending.  Now  and  then  it 
was  checked  by  a  train  of  ambulances 
and  supply-waggons,  or  caught  and  con- 


IN  THE  NORTH  179 

gested  in  the  crooked  streets  of  a  village 
where  children  and  girls  had  come  out  with 
bunches  of  flowers,  and  bakers  were  selling 
hot  loaves  to  the  sutlers;  and  when  we 
had  extricated  our  motor  from  the  crowd, 
and  climbed  another  hill,  we  came  on  an 
other  cavalcade  surging  toward  us  through 
the  wheat-fields.  For  over  an  hour  the 
procession  poured  by,  so  like  and  yet  so 
unlike  the  French  division  we  had  met  on 
the  move  as  we  went  north  a  few  days 
ago;  so  that  we  seemed  to  have  passed  to 
the  northern  front,  and  away  from  it  again, 
through  a  great  flashing  gateway  in  the 
long  wall  of  armies  guarding  the  civilized 
world  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Vosges. 


IN  ALSACE 


IN  ALSACE 

August  13th,  1915. 

MY  trip  to  the  east  began  by  a  dash 
toward  the  north.  Near  Rheims  is  a 
little  town  —  hardly  more  than  a  village, 
but  in  English  we  have  no  intermediate 
terms  such  as  "bourg"  and  "petit  bourg" 
—  where  one  of  the  new  Red  Cross  sanitary 
motor  units  was  to  be  seen  "in  action." 
The  inspection  over,  we  climbed  to  a  vine 
yard  above  the  town  and  looked  down  at 
a  river  valley  traversed  by  a  double  line 
of  trees.  The  first  line  marked  the  canal, 
which  is  held  by  the  French,  who  have 
gun-boats  on  it.  Behind  this  ran  the  high 
road,  with  the  first-line  French  trenches, 
and  just  above,  on  the  opposite  slope,  were 
the  German  lines.  The  soil  being  chalky, 
the  German  positions  were  clearly  marked 

183 


184  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

by  two  parallel  white  scorings  across  the 
brown  hill-front;  and  while  we  watched  we 
heard  desultory  firing,  and  saw,  here  and 
there  along  the  ridge,  the  smoke-puff  of  an 
exploding  shell.  It  was  incredibly  strange 
to  stand  there,  among  the  vines  humming 
with  summer  insects,  and  to  look  out  over 
a  peaceful  country  heavy  with  the  coming 
vintage,  knowing  that  the  trees  at  our  feet 
hid  a  line  of  gun-boats  that  were  crashing 
death  into  those  two  white  scorings  on  the 
hill. 

Rheims  itself  brings  one  nearer  to  the 
war  by  its  look  of  deathlike  desolation. 
The  paralysis  of  the  bombarded  towns  is 
one  of  the  most  tragic  results  of  the  in 
vasion.  One's  soul  revolts  at  this  senseless 
disorganizing  of  innumerable  useful  activ 
ities.  Compared  with  the  towns  of  the 
north,  Rheims  is  relatively  unharmed;  but 
for  that  very  reason  the  arrest  of  life  seems 
the  more  futile  and  cruel.  The  Cathedral 
square  was  deserted,  all  the  houses  around 


IN  ALSACE  185 

it  were  closed.  And  there,  before  us,  rose 
the  Cathedral  —  a  cathedral,  rather,  for  it 
was  not  the  one  we  had  always  known.  It 
was,  in  fact,  not  like  any  cathedral  on 
earth.  When  the  German  bombardment 
began,  the  west  front  of  Rheims  was  cov 
ered  with  scaffolding:  the  shells  set  it  on 
fire,  and  the  whole  church  was  wrapped  in 
flames.  Now  the  scaffolding  is  gone,  and  in 
the  dull  provincial  square  there  stands  a 
structure  so  strange  and  beautiful  that 
one  must  search  the  Inferno,  or  some  tale 
of  Eastern  magic,  for  words  to  picture  the 
luminous  unearthly  vision.  The  lower  part 
of  the  front  has  been  warmed  to  deep  tints 
of  umber  and  burnt  siena.  This  rich  burn 
ishing  passes,  higher  up,  through  yellowish- 
pink  and  carmine,  to  a  sulphur  whitening 
to  ivory;  and  the  recesses  of  the  portals  and 
the  hollows  behind  the  statues  are  lined 
with  a  black  denser  and  more  velvety  than 
any  effect  of  shadow  to  be  obtained  by 
sculptured  relief.  The  interweaving  of  col- 


186  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

our  over  the  whole  blunted  bruised  surface 
recalls  the  metallic  tints,  the  peacock-and- 
pigeon  iridescences,  the  incredible  mingling 
of  red,  blue,  umber  and  yellow  of  the  rocks 
along  the  Gulf  of  vEgina.  And  the  wonder 
of  the  impression  is  increased  by  the  sense 
of  its  evanescence;  the  knowledge  that  this 
is  the  beauty  of  disease  and  death,  that 
every  one  of  the  transfigured  statues  must 
crumble  under  the  autumn  rains,  that 
every  one  of  the  pink  or  golden  stones  is 
already  eaten  away  to  the  core,  that  the 
Cathedral  of  Rheims  is  glowing  and  dying 
before  us  like  a  sunset.  .  . 

August  14th. 

A  stone  and  brick  chateau  in  a  flat  park 
with  a  stream  running  through  it.  Pampas- 
grass,  geraniums,  rustic  bridges,  winding 
paths:  how  bourgeois  and  sleepy  it  would 
all  seem  but  for  the  sentinel  challenging 
our  motor  at  the  gate  ! 

Before  the  door  a  collie  dozing  in  the  sun, 


IN  ALSACE  187 

and  a  group  of  staff-officers  waiting  for 
luncheon.  Indoors,  a  room  with  handsome 
tapestries,  some  good  furniture  and  a  table 
spread  with  the  usual  military  maps  and 
aeroplane-photographs.  At  luncheon,  the 
General,  the  chiefs  of  the  staff  —  a  dozen 
in  all  —  and  an  officer  from  the  General 
Head-quarters.  The  usual  atmosphere  of 
camaraderie,  confidence,  good-humour,  and 
a  kind  of  cheerful  seriousness  that  I  have 
come  to  regard  as  characteristic  of  the  men 
immersed  in  the  actual  facts  of  the  war.  I 
set  down  this  impression  as  typical  of  many 
such  luncheon  hours  along  the  front.  .  . 

August  15th. 

This  morning  we  set  out  for  reconquered 
Alsace.  For  reasons  unexplained  to  the 
civilian  this  corner  of  old-new  France  has 
hitherto  been  inaccessible,  even  to  highly 
placed  French  officials;  and  there  was  a 
special  sense  of  excitement  in  taking  the 
road  that  led  to  it. 


188  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

We  slipped  through  a  valley  or  two, 
passed  some  placid  villages  with  vine- 
covered  gables,  and  noticed  that  most  of 
the  signs  over  the  shops  were  German.  We 
had  crossed  the  old  frontier  unawares,  and 
were  presently  in  the  charming  town  of 
Massevaux.  It  was  the  Feast  of  the  As 
sumption,  and  mass  was  just  over  when  we 
reached  the  square  before  the  church.  The 
streets  were  full  of  holiday  people,  well- 
dressed,  smiling,  seemingly  unconscious  of 
the  wrar.  Down  the  church-steps,  guided  by 
fond  mammas,  came  little  girls  in  white 
dresses,  with  white  wreaths  in  their  hair, 
and  carrying,  in  baskets  slung  over  their 
shoulders,  woolly  lambs  or  blue  and  white 
Virgins.  Groups  of  cavalry  officers  stood 
chatting  with  civilians  in  their  Sunday  best, 
and  through  the  windows  of  the  Golden 
Eagle  we  saw  active  preparations  for  a 
crowded  mid-day  dinner.  It  was  all  as 
happy  and  parochial  as  a  "Hansi"  picture, 
and  the  fine  old  gabled  houses  and  clean 


IN  ALSACE  189 

cobblestone  streets  made  the  traditional 
setting  for  an  Alsacian  holiday. 

At  the  Golden  Eagle  we  laid  in  a  store  of 
provisions,  and  started  out  across  the 
mountains  in  the  direction  of  Thann.  The 
Vosges,  at  this  season,  are  in  their  short 
midsummer  beauty,  rustling  with  streams, 
dripping  with  showers,  balmy  with  the 
smell  of  firs  and  bracken,  and  of  purple 
thyme  on  hot  banks.  We  reached  the  top 
of  a  ridge,  and,  hiding  the  motor  behind  a 
skirt  of  trees,  went  out  into  the  open  to 
lunch  on  a  sunny  slope.  Facing  us  across 
the  valley  was  a  tall  conical  hill  clothed 
with  forest.  That  hill  was  Hartmannswil- 
lerkopf,  the  centre  of  a  long  contest  in 
which  the  French  have  lately  been  victori 
ous;  and  all  about  us  stood  other  crests  and 
ridges  from  which  German  guns  still  look 
down  on  the  valley  of  Thann. 

Thann  itself  is  at  the  valley -head,  in  a 
neck  between  hills;  a  handsome  old  town, 
with  the  air  of  prosperous  stability  so  oddly 


190  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

characteristic  of  this  tormented  region. 
As  we  drove  through  the  main  street  the 
pall  of  war-sadness  fell  on  us  again,  darken 
ing  the  light  and  chilling  the  summer  air. 
Thann  is  raked  by  the  German  lines,  and 
its  windows  are  mostly  shuttered  and  its 
streets  deserted.  One  or  two  houses  in  the 
Cathedral  square  have  been  gutted,  but  the 
somewhat  over-pinnacled  and  statued  cathe 
dral  which  is  the  pride  of  Thann  is  almost 
untouched,  and  when  we  entered  it  vespers 
were  being  sung,  and  a  few  people  —  mostly 
in  black  —  knelt  in  the  nave. 

No  greater  contrast  could  be  imagined  to 
the  happy  feast-day  scene  we  had  left,  a 
few  miles  off,  at  Masse vaux;  but  Thann,  in 
spite  of  its  empty  streets,  is  not  a  deserted 
city.  A  vigorous  life  beats  in  it,  ready  to 
break  forth  as  soon  as  the  German  guns  are 
silenced.  The  French  administration,  work 
ing  on  the  best  of  terms  with  the  popula 
tion,  are  keeping  up  the  civil  activities  of 
the  town  as  the  Canons  of  the  Cathedral 


IN  ALSACE  191 

are  continuing  the  rites  of  the  Church. 
Many  inhabitants  still  remain  behind  their 
closed  shutters  and  dive  down  into  their 
cellars  when  the  shells  begin  to  crash;  and 
the  schools,  transferred  to  a  neighbouring 
village,  number  over  two  thousand  pupils. 
We  walked  through  the  town,  visited  a 
vast  catacomb  of  a  wine-cellar  fitted  up 
partly  as  an  ambulance  and  partly  as  a 
shelter  for  the  cellarless,  and  saw  the  lam 
entable  remains  of  the  industrial  quarter 
along  the  river,  which  has  been  the  special 
target  of  the  German  guns.  Thann  has  been 
industrially  ruined,  all  its  mills  are  wrecked; 
but  unlike  the  towns  of  the  north  it  has 
had  the  good  fortune  to  preserve  its  out 
line,  its  civic  personality,  a  face  that  its 
children,  when  they  come  back,  can  rec 
ognize  and  take  comfort  in. 

After  our  visit  to  the  ruins,  a  diversion 
was  suggested  by  the  amiable  adminis 
trators  of  Thann  who  had  guided  our 
sight-seeing.  They  were  just  off  for  a  mili- 


192  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

tary  tournament  which  the th  dragoons 

were  giving  that  afternoon  in  a  neighbour 
ing  valley,  and  we  were  invited  to  go  with 
them. 

The  scene  of  the  entertainment  was  a 
meadow  enclosed  in  an  amphitheatre  of 
rocks,  with  grassy  ledges  projecting  from 
the  cliff  like  tiers  of  opera-boxes.  These 
points  of  vantage  were  partly  occupied  by 
interested  spectators  and  partly  by  rumi 
nating  cattle;  on  the  lowest  slope,  the  rank 
and  fashion  of  the  neighbourhood  was  ranged 
on  a  semi-circle  of  chairs,  and  below,  in 
the  meadow,  a  lively  steeple-chase  was 
going  on.  The  riding  was  extremely  pretty, 
as  French  military  riding  always  is.  Few 
of  the  mounts  were  thoroughbreds  —  the 
greater  number,  in  fact,  being  local  cart 
horses  barely  broken  to  the  saddle  —  but 
their  agility  and  dash  did  the  greater  credit 
to  their  riders.  The  lancers,  in  particular, 
executed  an  effective  "musical  ride"  about 
a  central  pennon,  to  the  immense  satisfac- 


IN  ALSACE  193 

tion  of  the  fashionable  public  in  the  fore 
ground  and  of  the  gallery  on  the  rocks. 

The  audience  was  even  more  interesting 
than  the  artists.  Chatting  with  the  ladies 
in  the  front  row  were  the  General  of  di 
vision  and  his  staff,  groups  of  officers  in 
vited  from  the  adjoining  Head-quarters,  and 
most  of  the  civil  and  military  adminis 
trators  of  the  restored  "  Departement  du 
Haut  Rhin."  All  classes  had  turned  out  in 
honour  of  the  fete,  and  every  one  was  in  a 
holiday  mood.  The  people  among  whom 
we  sat  were  mostly  Alsatian  property- 
owners,  many  of  them  industrials  of  Thann. 
Some  had  been  driven  from  their  homes, 
others  had  seen  their  mills  destroyed,  all 
had  been  living  for  a  year  on  the  perilous 
edge  of  war,  under  the  menace  of  reprisals 
too  hideous  to  picture;  yet  the  humour 
prevailing  was  that  of  any  group  of  merry 
makers  in  a  peaceful  garrison  town.  I  have 
seen  nothing,  in  my  wanderings  along  the 
front,  more  indicative  of  the  good-breeding 


194  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

of  the  French  than  the  spirit  of  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  who  sat  chatting  with  the 
officers  on  that  grassy  slope  of  Alsace. 

The  display  of  haute  ecole  was  to  be  fol 
lowed  by  an  exhibition  of  "transportation 
throughout  the  ages,"  headed  by  a  Gaulish 
chariot  driven  by  a  trooper  with  a  long 
horsehair  moustache  and  mistletoe  wreath, 
and  ending  in  a  motor  of  which  the  engine 
had  been  taken  out  and  replaced  by  a  large 
placid  white  horse.  Unluckily  a  heavy  rain 
began  while  this  instructive  "number" 
awaited  its  turn,  and  we  had  to  leave  be 
fore  Vercingetorix  had  led  his  warriors  into 
the  ring.  .  . 

August  16th. 

Up  and  up  into  the  mountains.  We 
started  early,  taking  our  way  along  a  nar 
row  interminable  valley  that  sloped  up 
gradually  toward  the  east.  The  road  was 
encumbered  with  a  stream  of  hooded  supply 
vans  drawn  by  mules,  for  we  were  on  the 


IN  ALSACE  195 

way  to  one  of  the  main  positions  in  the 
Vosges,  and  this  train  of  provisions  is  kept 
up  day  and  night.  Finally  we  reached  a 
mountain  village  under  fir-clad  slopes,  with 
a  cold  stream  rushing  down  from  the  hills. 
On  one  side  of  the  road  was  a  rustic  i,nn, 
on  the  other,  among  the  firs,  a  chalet  occu 
pied  by  the  brigade  Head-quarters.  Every 
where  about  us  swarmed  the  little  "chas 
seurs  Alpins"  in  blue  Tarn  o'Shanters  and 
leather  gaiters.  For  a  year  we  had  been 
reading  of  these  heroes  of  the  hills,  and  here 
we  were  among  them,  looking  into  their 
thin  weather-beaten  faces  and  meeting  the 
twinkle  of  their  friendly  eyes.  Very  friendly 
they  all  were,  and  yet,  for  Frenchmen,  in 
articulate  and  shy.  All  over  the  world,  no 
doubt,  the  mountain  silences  breed  this 
kind  of  reserve,  this  shrinking  from  the 
glibness  of  the  valleys.  Yet  one  had  fancied 
that  French  fluency  must  soar  as  high  as 
Mont  Blanc. 

Mules  were  brought,  and  we  started  on  a 


196  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

long  ride  up  the  mountain.  The  way  led 
first  over  open  ledges,  with  deep  views  into 
valleys  blue  with  distance,  then  through 
miles  of  forest,  first  of  beech  and  fir,  and 
finally  all  of  fir.  Above  the  road  the  wooded 
slopes  rose  interminably  and  here  and 
there  we  came  on  tiers  of  mules,  three  or 
four  hundred  together,  stabled  under  the 
trees,  in  stalls  dug  out  of  different  levels  of 
the  slope.  Near  by  were  shelters  for  the 
men,  and  perhaps  at  the  next  bend  a  vil 
lage  of  "trappers'  huts,"  as  the  officers  call 
the  log-cabins  they  build  in  this  region. 
These  colonies  are  always  bustling  with 
life:  men  busy  cleaning  their  arms,  hauling 
material  for  new  cabins,  washing  or  mending 
their  clothes,  or  carrying  down  the  moun 
tain  from  the  camp-kitchen  the  two-han 
dled  pails  full  of  steaming  soup.  The  kitchen 
is  always  in  the  most  protected  quarter  of 
the  camp,  and  generally  at  some  distance 
in  the  rear.  Other  soldiers,  their  job  over, 
are  lolling  about  in  groups,  smoking,  gos- 


IN  ALSACE  197 

siping  or  writing  home,  the  "Soldiers' 
Letter-pad"  propped  on  a  patched  blue 
knee,  a  scarred  fist  laboriously  driving  the 
fountain  pen  received  in  hospital.  Some  are 
leaning  over  the  shoulder  of  a  pal  who  has 
just  received  a  Paris  paper,  others  chuck 
ling  together  at  the  jokes  of  their  own 
French  journal  —  the  "Echo  du  Ravin,'* 
the  "Journal  des  Poilus,"  or  the  "Diable 
Bleu":  little  papers  ground  out  in  pur 
plish  script  on  foolscap,  and  adorned  with 
comic-sketches  and  a  wealth  of  local  hu 
mour. 

Higher  up,  under  a  fir-belt,  at  the  edge 
of  a  meadow,  the  officer  who  rode  ahead 
signed  to  us  to  dismount  and  scramble  after 
him.  We  plunged  under  the  trees,  into 
what  seemed  a  thicker  thicket,  and  found 
it  to  be  a  thatch  of  branches  woven  to 
screen  the  muzzles  of  a  battery.  The  big 
guns  were  all  about  us,  crouched  in  these 
sylvan  lairs  like  wild  beasts  waiting  to 
spring;  and  near  each  gun  hovered  its  at- 


198  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

tendant  gunner,  proud,  possessive,  impor 
tant  as  a  bridegroom  with  his  bride. 

We  climbed  and  climbed  again,  reach 
ing  at  last  a  sun-and-wind-burnt  common 
which  forms  the  top  of  one  of  the  highest 
mountains  in  the  region.  The  forest  was 
left  below  us  and  only  a  belt  of  dwarf  firs 
ran  along  the  edge  of  the  great  grassy 
shoulder.  We  dismounted,  the  mules  were 
tethered  among  the  trees,  and  our  guide 
led  us  to  an  insignificant  looking  stone  in 
the  grass.  On  one  face  of  the  stone  was  cut 
the  letter  F.,  on  the  other  was  a  D.;  we 
stood  on  what,  till  a  year  ago,  was  the 
boundary  line  between  Republic  and  Em 
pire.  Since  then,  in  certain  places,  the  line 
has  been  bent  back  a  long  way;  but  where 
we  stood  we  were  still  under  German  guns, 
and  we  had  to  creep  along  in  the  shelter  of 
the  squat  firs  to  reach  the  outlook  on  the 
edge  of  the  plateau.  From  there,  under  a 
sky  of  racing  clouds,  we  saw  outstretched 
below  us  the  Promised  Land  of  Alsace. 


IN  ALSACE  199 

On  one  horizon,  far  off  in  the  plain,  gleamed 
the  roofs  and  spires  of  Colmar,  on  the  other 
rose  the  purplish  heights  beyond  the  Rhine. 
Near  by  stood  a  ring  of  bare  hills,  those 
closest  to  us  scarred  by  ridges  of  upheaved 
earth,  as  if  giant  moles  had  been  zig 
zagging  over  them;  and  just  under  us,  in  a 
little  green  valley,  lay  the  roofs  of  a  peace 
ful  village.  The  earth-ridges  and  the  peace 
ful  village  were  still  German ;  but  the  French 
positions  went  down  the  mountain,  almost 
to  the  valley's  edge;  and  one  dark  peak  on 
the  right  was  already  French. 

We  stopped  at  a  gap  in  the  firs  and 
walked  to  the  brink  of  the  plateau.  Just 
under  us  lay  a  rock-rimmed  lake.  More 
zig-zag  earthworks  surmounted  it  on  all 
sides,  and  on  the  nearest  shore  was  the 
branched  roofing  of  another  great  mule- 
shelter.  We  were  looking  down  at  the  spot 
to  which  the  night-caravans  of  the  Chas 
seurs  Alpins  descend  to  distribute  supplies 
to  the  fighting  line. 


200  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

"Who  goes  there?  Attention!  You're 
in  sight  of  the  lines!"  a  voice  called  out 
from  the  firs,  and  our  companion  signed 
to  us  to  move  back.  We  had  been  rather 
too  conspicuously  facing  the  German  bat 
teries  on  the  opposite  slope,  and  our  pres 
ence  might  have  drawn  their  fire  on  an 
artillery  observation  post  installed  near  by. 
We  retreated  hurriedly  and  unpacked  our 
luncheon-basket  on  the  more  sheltered  side 
of  the  ridge.  As  we  sat  there  in  the  grass, 
swept  by  a  great  mountain  breeze  full  of 
the  scent  of  thyme  and  myrtle,  while  the 
flutter  of  birds,  the  hum  of  insects,  the 
still  and  busy  life  of  the  hills  went  on  all 
about  us  in  the  sunshine,  the  pressure  of 
the  encircling  line  of  death  grew  more  in 
tolerably  real.  It  is  not  in  the  mud  and 
jokes  and  every-day  activities  of  the 
trenches  that  one  most  feels  the  damnable 
insanity  of  war;  it  is  where  it  lurks  like  a 
mythical  monster  in  scenes  to  which  the 
mind  has  always  turned  for  rest. 


IN  ALSACE  201 

We  had  not  yet  made  the  whole  tour  of 
the  mountain -top;  and  after  luncheon  we 
rode  over  to  a  point  where  a  long  narrow 
yoke  connects  it  with  a  spur  projecting 
directly  above  the  German  lines.  We  left 
our  mules  in  hiding  and  walked  along  the 
yoke,  a  mere  knife-edge  of  rock  rimmed  with 
dwarf  vegetation.  Suddenly  we  heard  an 
explosion  behind  us:  one  of  the  batteries 
we  had  passed  on  the  way  up  was  giving 
tongue.  The  German  lines  roared  back  and 
for  twenty  minutes  the  exchange  of  invec 
tive  thundered  on.  The  firing  was  almost 
incessant;  it  seemed  as  if  a  great  arch  of 
steel  were  being  built  up  above  us  in  the 
crystal  air.  And  we  could  follow  each  curve 
of  sound  from  its  incipience  to  its  final 
crash  in  the  trenches.  There  were  four  dis 
tinct  phases:  the  sharp  bang  from  the  can 
non,  the  long  furious  howl  overhead,  the 
dispersed  and  spreading  noise  of  the  shell's 
explosion,  and  then  the  roll  of  its  reverber 
ation  from  cliff  to  cliff.  This  is  what  we 


202  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

heard  as  we  crouched  in  the  lee  of  the  firs: 
what  we  saw  when  we  looked  out  between 
them  was  only  an  occasional  burst  of  white 
smoke  and  red  flame  from  one  hillside,  and 
on  the  opposite  one,  a  minute  later,  a 
brown  geyser  of  dust. 

Presently  a  deluge  of  rain  descended  on 
us,  driving  us  back  to  our  mules,  and  down 
the  nearest  mountain-trail  through  rivers 
of  mud.  It  rained  all  the  way:  rained  in 
such  floods  and  cataracts  that  the  very 
rocks  of  the  mountain  seemed  to  dissolve 
and  turn  into  mud.  As  we  slid  down  through 
it  we  met  strings  of  Chasseurs  Alpins  com 
ing  up,  splashed  to  the  waist  with  wet  red 
clay,  and  leading  pacfc-mules  so  coated 
with  it  that  they  looked  like  studio  models 
from  which  the  sculptor  has  just  pulled  off 
the  dripping  sheet.  Lower  down  we  came 
on  more  "trapper"  settlements,  so  satu 
rated  and  reeking  with  wet  that  they  gave 
us  a  glimpse  of  what  the  winter  months  on 
the  front  must  be.  No  more  cheerful  polish- 


IN  ALSACE  203 

ing  of  fire-arms,  hauling  of  faggots,  chatting 
and  smoking  in  sociable  groups:  everybody 
had  crept  under  the  doubtful  shelter  of 
branches  and  tarpaulins;  the  whole  army 
was  back  in  its  burrows. 

August  17th. 

Sunshine  again  for  our  arrival  at  Belfort. 
The  invincible  city  lies  unpretentiously  be 
hind  its  green  glacis  and  escutcheoned  gates ; 
but  the  guardian  Lion  under  the  Citadel  — 
well,  the  Lion  is  figuratively  as  well  as 
literally  a  la  hauteur.  With  the  sunset  flush 
on  him,  as  he  crouched  aloft  in  his  red  lair 
below  the  fort,  he  might  almost  have 
claimed  kin  with  his  mighty  prototypes  of 
the  Assarbanipal  frieze.  One  wondered  a 
little,  seeing  whose  work  he  was;  but  prob 
ably  it  is  easier  for  an  artist  to  symbolize 
an  heroic  town  than  the  abstract  and  elu 
sive  divinity  who  sheds  light  on  the  world 
from  New  York  harbour. 

From  Belfort  back  into  reconquered  Al- 


204  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

sace  the  road  runs  through  a  gentle  land 
scape  of  fields  and  orchards.  We  were 
bound  for  Dannemarie,  one  of  the  towns  of 
the  plain,  and  a  centre  of  the  new  adminis 
tration.  It  is  the  usual  "gros  bourg"  of 
Alsace,  with  comfortable  old  houses  in 
espaliered  gardens:  dull,  well-to-do,  con 
tented;  not  in  the  least  the  kind  of  setting 
demanded  by  the  patriotism  which  has  to 
be  fed  on  pictures  of  little  girls  singing  the 
Marseillaise  in  Alsatian  head-dresses  and 
old  men  with  operatic  waistcoats  tottering 
forward  to  kiss  the  flag.  What  we  saw  at 
Dannemarie  was  less  conspicuous  to  the 
eye  but  much  more  nourishing  to  the  imag 
ination.  The  military  and  civil  adminis 
trators  had  the  kindness  and  patience  to 
explain  their  work  and  show  us  something 
of  its  results;  and  the  visit  left  one  with  the 
impression  of  a  slow  and  quiet  process  of 
adaptation  wisely  planned  and  fruitfully 
carried  out.  We  did,  in  fact,  hear  the 
school-girls  of  Dannemarie  sing  the  Mar- 


IN  ALSACE  205 

seillaise  —  and  the  boys  too  —  but,  what 
was  far  more  interesting,  we  saw  them 
studying  under  the  direction  of  the  teachers 
who  had  always  had  them  in  charge,  and 
found  that  everywhere  it  had  been  the 
aim  of  the  French  officials  to  let  the  routine 
of  the  village  policy  go  on  undisturbed. 
The  German  signs  remain  over  the  shop- 
fronts  except  where  the  shop-keepers  have 
chosen  to  paint  them  out;  as  is  happening 
more  and  more  frequently.  When  a  func 
tionary  has  to  be  replaced  he  is  chosen 
from  the  same  town  or  the  same  district, 
and  even  the  personnel  of  the  civil  and 
military  administration  is  mainly  composed 
of  officers  and  civilians  of  Alsatian  stock. 
The  heads  of  both  these  departments,  who 
accompanied  us  on  our  rounds,  could  talk 
to  the  children  and  old  people  in  German 
as  well  as  in  their  local  dialect;  and,  as 
far  as  a  passing  observer  could  discern,  it 
seemed  as  though  everything  had  been  done 
to  reduce  to  a  minimum  the  sense  of 


206  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

strangeness  and  friction  which  is  inevi 
table  in  the  transition  from  one  rule  to  an 
other.  The  interesting  point  was  that  this 
exercise  of  tact  and  tolerance  seemed  to 
proceed  not  from  any  pressure  of  expediency 
but  from  a  sympathetic  understanding  of 
the  point  of  view  of  this  people  of  the 
border.  I  heard  in  Dannemarie  not  a  sylla 
ble  of  lyrical  patriotism  or  post-card  senti 
mentality,  but  only  a  kindly  and  impartial 
estimate  of  facts  as  they  were  and  must  be 
dealt  with. 

August  18th. 

Today  again  we  started  early  for  the 
mountains.  Our  road  ran  more  to  the  west 
ward,  through  the  heart  of  the  Vosges,  and 
up  to  a  fold  of  the  hills  near  the  borders  of 
Lorraine.  We  stopped  at  a  Head-quarters 
where  a  young  officer  of  dragoons  was  to 
join  us,  and  learned  from  him  that  we  were 
to  be  allowed  to  visit  some  of  the  first-line 
trenches  which  we  had  looked  out  on  from 


IN  ALSACE  207 

a  high-perched  observation  post  on  our 
former  visit  to  the  Vosges.  Violent  fighting 
was  going  on  in  that  particular  region,  and 
after  a  climb  of  an  hour  or  two  we  had  to 
leave  the  motor  at  a  sheltered  angle  of  the 
road  and  strike  across  the  hills  on  foot. 
Our  path  lay  through  the  forest,  and  every 
now  and  then  we  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
high-road  running  below  us  in  full  view  of 
the  German  batteries.  Presently  we  reached 
a  point  where  the  road  was  screened  by  a 
thick  growth  of  trees  behind  which  an  ob 
servation  post  had  been  set  up.  We  scram 
bled  down  and  looked  through  the  peep 
hole.  Just  below  us  lay  a  valley  with  a 
village  in  its  centre,  and  to  the  left  and 
right  of  the  village  were  two  hills,  the  one 
scored  with  French,  the  other  with  German 
trenches.  The  village,  at  first  sight,  looked 
as  normal  as  those  through  which  we  had 
been  passing;  but  a  closer  inspection  showed 
that  its  steeple  was  shattered  and  that 
some  of  its  houses  were  unroofed.  Part  of 


208  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

it  was  held  by  German,  part  by  French 
troops.  The  cemetery  adjoining  the  church, 
and  a  quarry  just  under  it,  belonged  to 
the  Germans;  but  a  line  of  French  trenches 
ran  from  the  farther  side  of  the  church  up 
to  the  French  batteries  on  the  right  hand 
hill.  Parallel  with  this  line,  but  starting 
from  the  other  side  of  the  village,  was  a 
hollow  lane  leading  up  to  a  single  tree. 
This  lane  was  a  German  trench,  protected 
by  the  guns  of  the  left  hand  hill;  and  be 
tween  the  two  lay  perhaps  fifty  yards  of 
ground.  All  this  was  close  under  us;  and 
closer  still  was  a  slope  of  open  ground 
leading  up  to  the  village  and  traversed  by 
a  rough  cart-track.  Along  this  track  in  the 
hot  sunshine  little  French  soldiers,  the  size 
of  tin  toys,  were  scrambling  up  with  bags 
and  loads  of  faggots,  their  ant-like  activity 
as  orderly  and  untroubled  as  if  the  two 
armies  had  not  lain  trench  to  trench  a  few 
yards  away.  It  was  one  of  those  strange 
and  contradictory  scenes  of  war  that  bring 


IN  ALSACE  209 

home  to  the  bewildered  Jooker-on  the  utter 
impossibility  of  picturing  how  the  thing 
really  happens. 

While  we  stood  watching  we  heard  the 
sudden  scream  of  a  battery  close  above  us. 
The  crest  of  the  hill  we  were  climbing  was 
alive  with  "Seventy-fives,"  and  the  pierc 
ing  noise  seemed  to  burst  out  at  our  very 
backs.  It  was  the  most  terrible  war-shriek 
I  had  heard:  a  kind  of  wolfish  baying  that 
called  up  an  image  of  all  the  dogs  of  war 
simultaneously  tugging  at  their  leashes. 
There  is  a  dreadful  majesty  in  the  sound  of 
a  distant  cannonade;  but  these  yelps  and 
hisses  roused  only  thoughts  of  horror.  And 
there,  on  the  opposite  slope,  the  black  and 
brown  geysers  were  beginning  to  spout  up 
from  the  German  trenches;  and  from  the 
batteries  above  them  came  the  puff  and 
roar  of  retaliation.  Below  us,  along  the  cart- 
track,  the  little  French  soldiers  continued 
to  scramble  up  peacefully  to  the  dilapi 
dated  village;  and  presently  a  group  of  offi- 


210  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

cers  of  dragoons,  emerging  from  the  wood, 
came  down  to  welcome  us  to  their  Head 
quarters. 

We  continued  to  climb  through  the  for 
est,  the  cannonade  still  whistling  overhead, 
till  we  reached  the  most  elaborate  trapper 
colony  we  had  yet  seen.  Half  underground, 
walled  with  logs,  and  deeply  roofed  by  sods 
tufted  with  ferns  and  moss,  the  cabins 
were  scattered  under  the  trees  and  con 
nected  with  each  other  by  paths  bordered 
with  white  stones.  Before  the  Colonel's 
cabin  the  soldiers  had  made  a  banked-up 
flower-bed  sown  with  annuals;  and  farther 
up  the  slope  stood  a  log  chapel,  a  mere 
gable  with  a  wooden  altar  under  it,  all 
tapestried  with  ivy  and  holly.  Near  by  was 
the  chaplain's  subterranean  dwelling.  It 
was  reached  by  a  deep  cutting  with  ivy- 
covered  sides,  and  ivy  and  fir-boughs 
masked  the  front.  This  sylvan  retreat  had 
just  been  completed,  and  the  officers,  the 
chaplain,  and  the  soldiers  loitering  near  by, 


IN  ALSACE  211 

were  all  equally  eager  to  have  it  seen  and 
hear  it  praised. 

The  commanding  officer,  having  done  the 
honours  of  the  camp,  led  us  about  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  down  the  hillside  to  an  open 
cutting  which  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
trenches.  From  the  cutting  we  passed  into 
a  long  tortuous  burrow  walled  and  roofed 
with  carefully  fitted  logs.  The  earth  floor 
was  covered  by  a  sort  of  wooden  lattice. 
The  only  light  entering  this  tunnel  was  a 
faint  ray  from  an  occasional  narrow  slit 
screened  by  branches;  and  beside  each  of 
these  peep-holes  hung  a  shield-shaped  metal 
shutter  to  be  pushed  over  it  in  case  of 
emergency. 

The  passage  wound  down  the  hill,  almost 
doubling  on  itself,  in  order  to  give  a  view 
of  all  the  surrounding  lines.  Presently  the 
roof  became  much  higher,  and  we  saw  on 
one  side  a  curtained  niche  about  five  feet 
above  the  floor.  One  of  the  officers  pulled 
the  curtain  back,  and  there,  on  a  narrow 


212  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

shelf,  a  gun  between  his  knees,  sat  a 
dragoon,  his  eyes  on  a  peep-hole.  The  cur 
tain  was  hastily  drawn  again  behind  his 
motionless  figure,  lest  the  faint  light  at  his 
back  should  betray  him.  We  passed  by 
several  of  these  helmeted  watchers,  and 
now  and  then  we  came  to  a  deeper  recess 
in  which  a  mitrailleuse  squatted,  its  black 
nose  thrust  through  a  net  of  branches. 
Sometimes  the  roof  of  the  tunnel  was  so 
low  that  we  had  to  bend  nearly  double;  and 
at  intervals  we  came  to  heavy  doors,  made 
of  logs  and  sheeted  with  iron,  which  shut 
off  one  section  from  another.  It  is  hard  to 
guess  the  distance  one  covers  in  creeping 
through  an  unlit  passage  with  different 
levels  and  countless  turnings;  but  we  must 
have  descended  the  hillside  for  at  least  a 
mile  before  we  came  out  into  a  half -ruined 
farmhouse.  This  building,  which  had  kept 
nothing  but  its  outer  walls  and  one  or  two 
partitions  between  the  rooms,  had  been 
transformed  into  an  observation  post.  In 


IN  ALSACE  213 

each  of  its  corners  a  ladder  led  up  to  a 
little  shelf  on  the  level  of  what  was  once 
the  second  story,  and  on  the  shelf  sat  a 
dragoon  at  his  peep-hole.  Below,  in  the 
dilapidated  rooms,  the  usual  life  of  a  camp 
was  going  on.  Some  of  the  soldiers  were 
playing  cards  at  a  kitchen  table,  others 
mending  their  clothes,  or  writing  letters 
or  chuckling  together  (not  too  loud)  over 
a  comic  newspaper.  It  might  have  been 
a  scene  anywhere  along  the  second-line 
trenches  but  for  the  lowered  voices,  the 
suddenness  with  which  I  was  drawn  back 
from  a  slit  in  the  wall  through  which  I  had 
incautiously  peered,  and  the  presence  of 
these  helmeted  watchers  overhead. 

We  plunged  underground  again  and  be 
gan  to  descend  through  another  darker  and 
narrower  tunnel.  In  the  upper  one  there 
had  been  one  or  two  roofless  stretches 
where  one  could  straighten  one's  back  and 
breathe;  but  here  we  were  in  pitch  black 
ness,  and  saved  from  breaking  our  necks 


214  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

only  by  the  gleam  of  the  pocket-light  which 
the  young  lieutenant  who  led  the  party 
shed  on  our  path.  As  he  whisked  it  up  and 
down  to  warn  us  of  sudden  steps  or  sharp 
corners  he  remarked  that  at  night  even 
this  faint  glimmer  was  forbidden,  and  that 
it  was  a  bad  job  going  back  and  forth  from 
the  last  outpost  till  one  had  learned  the 
turnings. 

The  last  outpost  was  a  half-ruined  farm 
house  like  the  other.  A  telephone  con 
nected  it  with  Head-quarters  and  more 
dumb  dragoons  sat  motionless  on  their 
lofty  shelves.  The  house  was  shut  off  from 
the  tunnel  by  an  armoured  door,  and  the 
orders  were  that  in  case  of  attack  that  door 
should  be  barred  from  within  and  the  ac 
cess  to  the  tunnel  defended  to  the  death  by 
the  men  in  the  outpost.  We  were  on  the 
extreme  verge  of  the  defences,  on  a  slope 
just  above  the  village  over  which  we  had 
heard  the  artillery  roaring  a  few  hours 
earlier.  The  spot  where  we  stood  was  raked 


IN  ALSACE  215 

on  all  sides  by  the  enemy's  lines,  and  the 
nearest  trenches  were  only  a  few  yards 
away.  But  of  all  this  nothing  was  really  per 
ceptible  or  comprehensible  to  me.  As  far 
as  my  own  observation  went,  we  might  have 
been  a  hundred  miles  from  the  valley  we 
had  looked  down  on,  where  the  French  sol 
diers  were  walking  peacefully  up  the  cart- 
track  in  the  sunshine.  I  only  knew  that  we 
had  come  out  of  a  black  labyrinth  into  a 
gutted  house  among  fruit-trees,  where  sol 
diers  were  lounging  and  smoking,  and  peo 
ple  whispered  as  they  do  about  a  death-bed. 
Over  a  break  in  the  walls  I  saw  another 
gutted  farmhouse  close  by  in  another  or 
chard:  it  was  an  enemy  outpost,  and  silent 
watchers  in  helmets  of  another  shape  sat 
there  watching  on  the  same  high  shelves. 
But  all  this  was  infinitely  less  real  and 
terrible  than  the  cannonade  above  the  dis 
puted  village.  The  artillery  had  ceased 
and  the  air  was  full  of  summer  murmurs. 
Close  by  on  a  sheltered  ledge  I  saw  a  patch 


216  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

of  vineyard  with  dewy  cobwebs  hanging  to 
the  vines.  I  could  not  understand  where 
we  were,  or  what  it  was  all  about,  or  why  a 
shell  from  the  enemy  outpost  did  not  sud 
denly  annihilate  us.  And  then,  little  by 
little,  there  came  over  me  the  sense  of  that 
mute  reciprocal  watching  from  trench  to 
trench:  the  interlocked  stare  of  innumer 
able  pairs  of  eyes,  stretching  on,  mile  after 
mile,  along  the  whole  sleepless  line  from 
Dunkerque  to  Belfort. 

My  last  vision  of  the  French  front  which 
I  had  travelled  from  end  to  end  was  this 
picture  of  a  shelled  house  where  a  few  men, 
who  sat  smoking  and  playing  cards  in  the 
sunshine,  had  orders  to  hold  out  to  the 
death  rather  than  let  their  fraction  of  that 
front  be  broken. 


THE   TONE   OF   FRANCE 


THE   TONE   OF   FRANCE 

XTOBODY  now  asks  the  question  that 
-L  ^  so  often,  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
came  to  me  from  the  other  side  of  the 
world:  "What  is  France  like?"  Every 
one  knows  what  France  has  proved  to  be 
like:  from  being  a  difficult  problem  she 
has  long  since  become  a  luminous  instance. 
Nevertheless,  to  those  on  whom  that 
illumination  has  shone  only  from  far  off, 
there  may  still  be  something  to  learn  about 
its  component  elements;  for  it  has  come  to 
consist  of  many  separate  rays,  and  the 
weary  strain  of  the  last  year  has  been  the 
spectroscope  to  decompose  them.  From 
the  very  beginning,  when  one  felt  the  ef 
fulgence  as  the  mere  pale  brightness  before 
dawn,  the  attempt  to  define  it  was  irresist 
ible.  "There  is  a  tone  —  "  the  tingling  sense 
of  it  was  in  the  air  from  the  first  days,  the 

219 


220  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

first  hours  —  "but  what  does  it  consist  in  ? 
And  just  how  is  one  aware  of  it?"  In  those 
days  the  answer  was  comparatively  easy. 
The  tone  of  France  after  the  declaration  of 
war  was  the  white  glow  of  dedication:  a 
great  nation's  collective  impulse  (since  there 
is  no  English  equivalent  for  that  winged 
word,  elan)  to  resist  destruction.  But  at 
that  time  no  one  knew  what  the  resistance 
was  to  cost,  how  long  it  would  have  to  last, 
what  sacrifices,  material  and  moral,  it  would 
necessitate.  And  for  the  moment  baser  sen 
timents  were  silenced:  greed,  self-interest, 
pusillanimity  seemed  to  have  been  purged 
from  the  race.  The  great  sitting  of  the 
Chamber,  that  almost  religious  celebration 
of  defensive  union,  really  expressed  the 
opinion  of  the  whole  people.  It  is  fairly 
easy  to  soar  to  the  empyrean  when  one  is 
carried  on  the  wings  of  such  an  impulse, 
and  when  one  does  not  know  how  long 
one  is  to  be  kept  suspended  at  the  breath 
ing-limit. 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  221 

But  there  is  a  term  to  the  flight  of  the 
most  soaring  elan.  It  is  likely,  after  a  while, 
to  come  back  broken-winged  and  resign 
itself  to  barn-yard  bounds.  National  judg 
ments  cannot  remain  for  long  above  indi 
vidual  feelings;  and  you  cannot  get  a  na 
tional  "tone"  out  of  anything  less  than  a 
whole  nation.  The  really  interesting  thing, 
therefore,  was  to  see,  as  the  war  went  on, 
and  grew  into  a  calamity  unheard  of  in 
human  annals,  how  the  French  spirit  would 
meet  it,  and  what  virtues  extract  from  it. 

The  war  has  been  a  calamity  unheard  of; 
but  France  has  never  been  afraid  of  the 
unheard  of.  No  race  has  ever  yet  so  auda 
ciously  dispensed  with  old  precedents;  as 
none  has  ever  so  revered  their  relics.  It  is 
a  great  strength  to  be  able  to  walk  without 
the  support  of  analogies;  and  France  has 
always  shown  that  strength  in  times  of 
crisis.  The  absorbing  question,  as  the  war 
went  on,  was  to  discover  how  far  down 
into  the  people  this  intellectual  audacity 


222  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

penetrated,  how  instinctive  it  had  become, 
and  how  it  would  endure  the  strain  of  pro 
longed  inaction. 

There  was  never  much  doubt  about  the 
army.  When  a  warlike  race  has  an  invader 
on  its  soil,  the  men  holding  back  the  in 
vader  can  never  be  said  to  be  inactive. 
But  behind  the  army  were  the  waiting  mil 
lions  to  whom  that  long  motionless  line 
in  the  trenches  might  gradually  have  be 
come  a  mere  condition  of  thought,  an  ac 
cepted  limitation  to  all  sorts  of  activities 
and  pleasures.  The  danger  was  that  such  a 
war  —  static,  dogged,  uneventful  —  might 
gradually  cramp  instead  of  enlarging  the 
mood  of  the  lookers-on.  Conscription,  of 
course,  was  there  to  minimize  this  danger. 
Every  one  was  sharing  alike  in  the  glory 
and  the  woe.  But  the  glory  was  not  of  a 
kind  to  penetrate  or  dazzle.  It  requires 
more  imagination  to  see  the  halo  around 
tenacity  than  around  dash;  and  the  French 
still  cling  to  the  view  that  they  are,  so  to 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  223 

speak,  the  patentees  and  proprietors  of 
dash,  and  much  less  at  home  with  his  dull 
drudge  of  a  partner.  So  there  was  reason 
to  fear,  in  the  long  run,  a  gradual  but  irre 
sistible  disintegration,  not  of  public  opin 
ion,  but  of  something  subtler  and  more 
fundamental:  public  sentiment.  It  was  pos 
sible  that  civilian  France,  while  collectively 
seeming  to  remain  at  the  same  height,  might 
individually  deteriorate  and  diminish  in  its 
attitude  toward  the  war. 

The  French  would  not  be  human,  and 
therefore  would  not  be  interesting,  if  one 
had  not  perceived  in  them  occasional  symp 
toms  of  such  a  peril.  There  has  not  been 
a  Frenchman  or  a  Frenchwoman  —  save  a 
few  harmless  and  perhaps  nervous  the- 
orizers  —  who  has  wavered  about  the  mili 
tary  policy  of  the  country;  but  there  have 
naturally  been  some  who  have  found  it  less 
easy  than  they  could  have  foreseen  to  live 
up  to  the  sacrifices  it  has  necessitated.  Of 
course  there  have  been  such  people:  one 


224  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

would  have  had  to  postulate  them  if  they 
had  not  come  within  one's  experience. 
There  have  been  some  to  whom  it  was 
harder  than  they  imagined  to  give  up  a 
certain  way  of  living,  or  a  certain  kind  of 
breakfast-roll;  though  the  French,  being 
fundamentally  temperate,  are  far  less  the 
slaves  of  the  luxuries  they  have  invented 
than  are  the  other  races  who  have  adopted 
these  luxuries. 

There  have  been  many  more  who  found 
the  sacrifice  of  personal  happiness  —  of  all 
that  made  life  livable,  or  one's  country 
worth  fighting  for  —  infinitely  harder  than 
the  most  apprehensive  imagination  could 
have  pictured.  There  have  been  mothers 
and  widows  for  whom  a  single  grave,  or 
the  appearance  of  one  name  on  the  missing 
list,  has  turned  the  whole  conflict  into  an 
idiot's  tale.  There  have  been  many  such; 
but  there  have  apparently  not  been  enough 
to  deflect  by  a  hair's  breadth  the  subtle 
current  of  public  sentiment;  unless  it  is 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  225 

truer,  as  it  is  infinitely  more  inspiring,  to 
suppose  that,  of  this  company  of  blinded 
baffled  sufferers,  almost  all  have  had  the 
strength  to  hide  their  despair  and  to  say 
of  the  great  national  effort  which  has  lost 
most  of  its  meaning  to  them:  "Though  it 
slay  me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  it."  That  is 
probably  the  finest  triumph  of  the  tone  of 
France:  that  its  myriad  fiery  currents  flow 
from  so  many  hearts  made  insensible  by 
suffering,  that  so  many  dead  hands  feed  its 
undying  lamp. 

This  does  not  in  the  least  imply  that 
resignation  is  the  prevailing  note  in  the 
tone  of  France.  The  attitude  of  the  French 
people,  after  fourteen  months  of  trial,  is 
not  one  of  submission  to  unparalleled  ca 
lamity.  It  is  one  of  exaltation,  energy, 
the  hot  resolve  to  dominate  the  disaster. 
In  all  classes  the  feeling  is  the  same:  every 
word  and  every  act  is  based  on  the  resolute 
ignoring  of  any  alternative  to  victory.  The 
French  people  no  more  think  of  a  compro- 


226  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

mise  than  people  would  think  of  facing  a 
flood  or  an  earthquake  with  a  white  flag. 

Two  questions  are  likely  to  be  put  to 
any  observer  of  the  struggle  who  risks 
such  assertions.  What,  one  may  be  asked, 
are  the  proofs  of  this  national  tone?  And 
what  conditions  and  qualities  seem  to  min 
ister  to  it? 

The  proofs,  now  that  "the  tumult  and 
the  shouting  dies,"  and  civilian  life  has 
dropped  back  into  something  like  its  usual 
routine,  are  naturally  less  definable  than 
at  the  outset.  One  of  the  most  evident  is 
the  spirit  in  which  all  kinds  of  privations 
are  accepted.  No  one  who  has  come  in 
contact  with  the  work-people  and  small 
shop-keepers  of  Paris  in  the  last  year  can 
fail  to  be  struck  by  the  extreme  dignity 
and  grace  with  which  doing  without  things 
is  practised.  The  Frenchwoman  leaning  in 
the  door  of  her  empty  boutique  still  wears 
the  smile  with  which  she  used  to  calm  the 
impatience  of  crowding  shoppers.  The  seam- 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  227 

stress  living  on  the  meagre  pay  of  a  charity 
work-room  gives  her  day's  sewing  as  faith 
fully  as  if  she  were  working  for  full  wages 
in  a  fashionable  atelier,  and  never  tries,  by 
the  least  hint  of  private  difficulties,  to  ex 
tract  additional  help.  The  habitual  cheer 
fulness  of  the  Parisian  workwoman  rises, 
in  moments  of  sorrow,  to  the  finest  forti 
tude.  In  a  work-room  where  many  women 
have  been  employed  since  the  beginning 
of  the  war,  a  young  girl  of  sixteen  heard 
late  one  afternoon  that  her  only  brother 
had  been  killed.  She  had  a  moment  of  des 
perate  distress;  but  there  was  a  big  family 
to  be  helped  by  her  small  earnings,  and  the 
next  morning  punctually  she  was  back  at 
work.  In  this  same  work-room  the  women 
have  one  half-holiday  in  the  week,  without 
reduction  of  pay;  yet  if  an  order  has  to  be 
rushed  through  for  a  hospital  they  give  up 
that  one  afternoon  as  gaily  as  if  they  were 
doing  it  for  their  pleasure.  But  if  any  one 
who  has  lived  for  the  last  year  among  the 


228  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

workers  and  small  tradesmen  of  Paris 
should  begin  to  cite  instances  of  endurance, 
self-denial  and  secret  charity,  the  list  would 
have  no  end.  The  essential  of  it  all  is  the 
spirit  in  which  these  acts  are  accomplished. 
The  second  question:  What  are  the  con 
ditions  and  qualities  that  have  produced 
such  results?  is  less  easy  to  answer.  The 
door  is  so  largely  open  to  conjecture  that 
every  explanation  must  depend  largely  on 
the  answerer's  personal  bias.  But  one  thing 
is  certain.  France  has  not  achieved  her 
present  tone  by  the  sacrifice  of  any  of  her 
national  traits,  but  rather  by  their  extreme 
keying  up;  therefore  the  surest  way  of 
finding  a  clue  to  that  tone  is  to  try  to  single 
out  whatever  distinctively  "French"  char 
acteristics  —  or  those  that  appear  such  to 
the  envious  alien  —  have  a  direct  bearing 
on  the  present  attitude  of  France.  Which 
(one  must  ask)  of  all  their  multiple  gifts 
most  help  the  French  today  to  be  what 
they  are  in  just  the  way  they  are  ? 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  229 

Intelligence!  is  the  first  and  instantane 
ous  answer.  Many  French  people  seem  un 
aware  of  this.  They  are  sincerely  persuaded 
that  the  curbing  of  their  critical  activity 
has  been  one  of  the  most  important  and 
useful  results  of  the  war.  One  is  told  that, 
in  a  spirit  of  patriotism,  this  fault-finding 
people  has  learned  not  to  find  fault.  Noth 
ing  could  be  more  untrue.  The  French, 
when  they  have  a  grievance,  do  not  air  it 
in  the  Times:  their  forum  is  the  cafe  and 
not  the  newspaper.  But  in  the  cafe  they 
are  talking  as  freely  as  ever,  discriminat 
ing  as  keenly  and  judging  as  passionately. 
The  difference  is  that  the  very  exercise  of 
their  intelligence  on  a  problem  larger  and 
more  difficult  than  any  they  have  hitherto 
faced  has  freed  them  from  the  dominion  of 
most  of  the  prejudices,  catch-words  and 
conventions  that  directed  opinion  before 
the  war.  Then  their  intelligence  ran  hi 
fixed  channels;  now  it  has  overflowed  its 
banks. 


230  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

This  release  has  produced  an  immediate 
readjusting  of  all  the  elements  of  national 
life.  In  great  trials  a  race  is  tested  by  its 
values;  and  the  war  has  shown  the  world 
what  are  the  real  values  of  France.  Never 
for  an  instant  has  this  people,  so  expert  in 
the  great  art  of  living,  imagined  that  life 
consisted  in  being  alive.  Enamoured  of 
pleasure  and  beauty,  dwelling  freely  and 
frankly  in  the  present,  they  have  yet  kept 
their  sense  of  larger  meanings,  have  under 
stood  life  to  be  made  up  of  many  things 
past  and  to  come,  of  renunciation  as  well 
as  satisfaction,  of  traditions  as  well  as  ex 
periments,  of  dying  as  much  as  of  living. 
Never  have  they  considered  life  as  a  thing 
to  be  cherished  in  itself,  apart  from  its  re 
actions  and  its  relations. 

Intelligence  first,  then,  has  helped  France 
to  be  what  she  is;  and  next,  perhaps,  one 
of  its  corollaries,  expression.  The  French  are 
the  first  to  laugh  at  themselves  for  running 
to  words:  they  seem  to  regard  their  gift 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  231 

for  expression  as  a  weakness,  a  possible 
deterrent  to  action.  The  last  year  has  not 
confirmed  that  view.  It  has  rather  shown 
that  eloquence  is  a  supplementary  weapon. 
By  "eloquence"  I  naturally  do  not  mean 
public  speaking,  nor  yet  the  rhetorical 
writing  too  often  associated  with  the  word. 
Rhetoric  is  the  dressing-up  of  conventional 
sentiment,  eloquence  the  fearless  expression 
of  real  emotion.  And  this  gift  of  the  fear 
less  expression  of  emotion  —  fearless,  that 
is,  of  ridicule,  or  of  indifference  in  the 
hearer  —  has  been  an  inestimable  strength 
to  France.  It  is  a  sign  of  the  high  average 
of  French  intelligence  that  feeling  well- 
worded  can  stir  and  uplift  it;  that  "words" 
are  not  half  shamefacedly  regarded  as 
something  separate  from,  and  extraneous 
to,  emotion,  or  even  as  a  mere  vent  for  it, 
but  as  actually  animating  and  forming  it. 
Every  additional  faculty  for  exteriorizing 
states  of  feeling,  giving  them  a  face  and  a 
language,  is  a  moral  as  well  as  an  artistic 


232  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

asset,  and  Goethe  was  never  wiser  than 
when  he  wrote: 

"A  god  gave  me  the  voice  to  speak  my  pain." 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  French 
are  at  this  moment  drawing  a  part  of  their 
national  strength  from  their  language.  The 
piety  with  which  they  have  cherished  and 
cultivated  it  has  made  it  a  precious  instru 
ment  in  their  hands.  It  can  say  so  beauti 
fully  what  they  feel  that  they  find  strength 
and  renovation  in  using  it;  and  the  word 
once  uttered  is  passed  on,  and  carries  the 
same  help  to  others.  Countless  instances  of 
such  happy  expression  could  be  cited  by 
any  one  who  has  lived  the  last  year  in 
France.  On  the  bodies  of  young  soldiers 
have  been  found  letters  of  farewell  to  their 
parents  that  made  one  think  of  some 
heroic  Elizabethan  verse;  and  the  mothers 
robbed  of  these  sons  have  sent  them  an 
answering  cry  of  courage. 

"Thank  you,"  such  a  mourner  wrote  me 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  233 

the  other  day,  "for  having  understood  the 
cruelty  of  our  fate,  and  having  pitied  us. 
Thank  you  also  for  having  exalted  the 
pride  that  is  mingled  with  our  unutterable 
sorrow."  Simply  that,  and  no  more;  but 
she  might  have  been  speaking  for  all  the 
mothers  of  France. 

When  the  eloquent  expression  of  feeling 
does  not  issue  in  action  —  or  at  least  in  a 
state  of  mind  equivalent  to  action  —  it 
sinks  to  the  level  of  rhetoric;  but  in  France 
at  this  moment  expression  and  conduct 
supplement  and  reflect  each  other.  And  this 
brings  me  to  the  other  great  attribute 
which  goes  to  making  up  the  tone  of  France : 
the  quality  of  courage.  It  is  not  uninten 
tionally  that  it  comes  last  on  my  list. 
French  courage  is  courage  rationalized, 
courage  thought  out,  and  found  necessary 
to  some  special  end;  it  is,  as  much  as  any 
other  quality  of  the  French  temperament, 
the  result  of  French  intelligence. 

No   people   so   sensitive   to   beautyj    so 


234  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

penetrated  with  a  passionate  interest  in 
life,  so  endowed  with  the  power  to  express 
and  immortalize  that  .interest,  can  ever 
really  enjoy  destruction  for  its  own  sake. 
The  French  hate  "militarism."  It  is  stu 
pid,  inartistic,  unimaginative  and  enslaving; 
there  could  not  be  four  better  French  rea 
sons  for  detesting  it.  Nor  have  the  French 
ever  enjoyed  the  savage  forms  of  sport 
which  stimulate  the  blood  of  more  apa 
thetic  or  more  brutal  races.  Neither  prize 
fighting  nor  bull-fighting  is  of  the  soil  in 
France,  and  Frenchmen  do  not  settle  their 
private  differences  impromptu  with  their 
fists:  they  do  it,  logically  and  with  delibera 
tion,  on  the  duelling-ground.  But  when  a 
national  danger  threatens,  they  instantly 
become  what  they  proudly  and  justly  call 
themselves  —  "a  warlike  nation "  —  and  ap 
ply  to  the  business  in  hand  the  ardour, 
the  imagination,  the  perseverance  that 
have  made  them  for  centuries  the  great 
creative  force  of  civilization.  Every  French 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  235 

soldier  knows  why  he  is  fighting,  and  why, 
at  this  moment,  physical  courage  is  the  first 
quality  demanded  of  him;  every  French 
woman  knows  why  war  is  being  waged, 
and  why  her  moral  courage  is  needed  to 
supplement  the  soldier's  contempt  of  death. 
The  women  of  France  are  supplying 
this  moral  courage  in  act  as  well  as  in  word. 
Frenchwomen,  as  a  rule,  are  perhaps  less 
instinctively  "courageous,"  in  the  elemen 
tary  sense,  than  their  Anglo-Saxon  sisters. 
They  are  afraid  of  more  things,  and  are 
less  ashamed  of  showing  their  fear.  The 
French  mother  coddles  her  children,  the 
boys  as  well  as  the  girls :  when  they  tumble 
and  bark  their  knees  they  are  expected  to 
cry,  and  not  taught  to  control  themselves 
as  English  and  American  children  are.  I 
have  seen  big  French  boys  bawling  over  a 
cut  or  a  bruise  that  an  Anglo-Saxon  girl 
of  the  same  age  would  have  felt  compelled 
to  bear  without  a  tear.  Frenchwomen  are 
timid  for  themselves  as  well  as  for  their 


236  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

children.  They  are  afraid  of  the  unex 
pected,  the  unknown,  the  experimental.  It 
is  not  part  of  the  Frenchwoman's  training 
to  pretend  to  have  physical  courage.  She 
has  not  the  advantage  of  our  discipline  in 
the  hypocrisies  of  "good  form"  when  she 
is  called  on  to  be  brave,  she  must  draw 
her  courage  from  her  brains.  She  must  first 
be  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  heroism; 
after  that  she  is  fit  to  go  bridle  to  bridle 
with  Jeanne  d'Arc. 

The  same  display  of  reasoned  courage  is 
visible  in  the  hasty  adaptation  of  the 
Frenchwoman  to  all  kinds  of  uncongenial 
jobs.  Almost  every  kind  of  service  she  has 
been  called  to  render  since  the  war  be 
gan  has  been  fundamentally  uncongenial. 
A  French  doctor  once  remarked  to  me 
that  Frenchwomen  never  make  really  good 
sick-nurses  except  when  they  are  nursing 
their  own  people.  They  are  too  personal, 
too  emotional,  and  too  much  interested 
an  more  interesting  things,  to  take  to  the 


THE  TONE  OF  FRANCE  237 

fussy  details  of  good  nursing,  except  when 
it  can  help  some  one  they  care  for.  Even 
then,  as  a  rule,  they  are  not  systematic  or 
tidy;  but  they  make  up  for  these  deficien 
cies  by  inexhaustible  willingness  and  sym 
pathy.  And  it  has  been  easy  for  them  to 
become  good  war-nurses,  because  every 
Frenchwoman  who  nurses  a  French  soldier 
feels  that  she  is  caring  for  her  kin.  The 
French  war-nurse  sometimes  mislays  an  in 
strument  or  forgets  to  sterilize  a  dressing; 
but  she  almost  always  finds  the  consoling 
word  to  say  and  the  right  tone  to  take 
with  her  wounded  soldiers.  That  profound 
solidarity  which  is  one  of  the  results  of 
conscription  flowers,  in  war-time,  in  an 
exquisite  and  impartial  devotion. 

This,  then,  is  what  "France  is  like." 
The  whole  civilian  part  of  the  nation 
seems  merged  in  one  symbolic  figure,  carry 
ing  help  and  hope  to  the  fighters  or  pas 
sionately  bent  above  the  wounded.  The  de 
votion,  the  self-denial,  seem  instinctive; 


238  FIGHTING  FRANCE 

but  they  are  really  based  on  a  reasoned 
knowledge  of  the  situation  and  on  an  un 
flinching  estimate  of  values.  All  France 
knows  today  that  real  "life"  consists  in 
the  things  that  make  it  worth  living,  and 
that  these  things,  for  France,  depend  on 
the  free  expression  of  her  national  genius. 
If  France  perishes  as  an  intellectual  light 
and  as  a  moral  force  every  Frenchman 
perishes  with  her;  and  the  only  death  that 
Frenchmen  fear  is  not  death  in  the  trenches 
but  death  by  the  extinction  of  their  national 
ideal.  It  is  against  this  death  that  the  whole 
nation  is  fighting;  and  it  is  the  reasoned 
recognition  of  their  peril  which,  at  this 
moment,  is  making  the  most  intelligent 
people  hi  the  world  the  most  sublime. 

THE  END 


DATE  DUE 


PRINTED  IN  U.S. 


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